Disgraced, Part Two
by Muggle Jane
Summary: After the birth of her daughter, Hermione is looking at entirely new challenges. Continues after Disgraced, Part One
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Disclaimer, don't own the characters, etc.**

**This picks up after Part One, still from Hermione's POV.**

Amelia's first year of life seemed to fly by. She sat up, she started crawling, then walking, she spoke her first word- Cook. Crookshanks. She loved him fiercely, and he would indulgently tolerate when she tugged on his fur and put his tail in her mouth, despite my best efforts to get her to stop. Mumma was her second word, and I had never been happier when I heard her say it.

We still spent most of our time in the Muggle town near the flat, or in Hogsmeade. People in the wizarding world were known to give her dirty looks, like she had anything to do with the choice Draco and I had made. I gave those people a sharp piece of my mind. I was not, however, the only single mother in the Muggle library group I took her to. There we were just Hermione and Amelia, the ones that lived just outside of town.

Draco was very present. He was Daddy to her- Dada was her third word- and we met with him at least three or four times a week so they could spend time together. As she got older and stopped being so reliant on nursing, he would take her for a few hours at a time, and then most of the day, and I was- very surprisingly- never worried about the time she spent away from me with him.

She had two very loving pairs of grandparents. Lucius and Narcissa absolutely doted on her and Molly and Arthur accepted her as one of their own, just as they had with Teddy and Remus. Ginny wasn't quite so sure about the Gran thing, but she loved my daughter very much.

The day that Ginny announced she was pregnant was followed by the night she spent in my flat because she thought Lucius was being completely unreasonable about the whole thing, and she refused to go home until, as she put it, he stopped being a narrow-minded arse. They were both being unreasonable about it, to my mind, and after a night of listening to her complain loudly and at great length about it, I'd sent him a Howler and told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to be at my flat in the morning. I'd taken Amelia over to visit at the Black house in London, and by the time I got back that evening, they were both gone and there was a hastily-written note from Ginny.

Abraxas and Arthur- Artie- Malfoy were born 32 minutes apart on February 2, just six days after their father's 49th birthday. Amelia was infatuated with her infant uncles. She liked patting them gently on the face and sitting and watching them with her big brown eyes. Her baby hair had fallen out and what had grown back was blond and straight, exactly like her daddy and her grandfather. She looked a lot like Draco, actually, but she definitely had my eyes. And my nose, thank Merlin, instead of her father's more pointed feature. Shortly after she'd been born, Ginny had pulled out the baby pictures of Draco and they did look almost exactly alike. Also, I got to rib Draco about having seen his baby pictures. And at least she wasn't as sensitive as her father.

The twins' birth seemed to mend the remaining rift between Lucius and Arthur. They weren't friends and very likely would never be, but they were friendly at least, and Lucius was welcome at The Burrow, a welcome that had unofficially been rescinded again after Amelia had been born.

And Arthur would go to Malfoy Manor. We'd had a long discussion about where Amelia's first birthday would be. Draco had a large number of friends he wanted to invite, and with Sirius and Luna at school again and unable to help Narcissa get the Black home ready, it was decided that it would be better to have it at Malfoy Manor.

I arrived early in the morning, as did Draco, and we helped Kitty get the enormous house ready for the party.

Narcissa came through the door into the ballroom that we were decorating. "Hermione, I just put her down for a nap." Amelia had her own room in Malfoy Manor. I did as well, connected to hers by a door. I'd used it maybe a handful of times since she'd been born, but I appreciated the thought. Lucius whole-heartedly included me as part of the family. This was a mixed blessing; it meant that he felt entitled to try and manage my life the same way he did with his son. It also meant, though, that the Malfoy name was fully attached to mine- which, as much as I hated to admit it, still meant something in certain circles.

"Did she give you any trouble?" I asked, tying the end of a magic balloon before releasing it to hover above my head. Sometimes Amelia decided that she just didn't want to nap.

"No. I only hope she doesn't fall to pieces at the party like her father did when he turned one. He refused to nap beforehand, and he was a complete mess by around halfway through."

I knew Draco overheard by the way he stiffened and I coughed to cover my laughter. Astoria, however, felt no such compunction at showing her amusement. "He does get rather cross when he doesn't get enough sleep." She was good for him. She checked his arrogance in a patient way, and she had the ability to just look at him until he would capitulate to whatever they were talking about with a mutter and a glance at the floor.

"Kingsley gave me the day off on Tuesday, so we'll drop by, but I'll keep her home with me." Narcissa watched her granddaughter when both Draco and I were at work.

"Would you like to come for lunch?" she asked.

"Lunch sounds perfect. Thank you."

"You let him?" Draco asked, eyebrow raised in disbelief.

I was about to answer, but I was cut off by a very tired-looking red-haired witch. "More like he told her that she wasn't to show her face at work, or she'd be forcibly removed." She walked over and rested her head heavily on my shoulder.

I empathized with her. I knew how tired I'd been when Amelia was two months old, I couldn't even imagine it with twins, even with house-elf help. Artie was, like his name-sake, very good-natured and even-tempered. Abraxas, though... Abraxas was a very sensitive and high-needs little man. "Did they let you sleep last night?"

"A little. If there was a way to make Lucius produce breastmilk, I would."

"There's a... a Muggle thing, a breast pump. You express your milk and then you can put it in a bottle and anyone can feed them." I'd heard all about them at the library group I took Amelia to in the town near my flat.

Draco looked a little uneasy at all this talk of bodily fluids, and he moved farther into the room, away from the conversation.

"Muggles are the best." Ginny sounded like she was in danger of falling asleep again. "Narcissa, remind me to tell Lucius that we're getting one of those."

"Are the boys sleeping?" At Ginny's nod, Narcissa arched an eyebrow. "Is there a reason you're not also sleeping?"

She nodded. "I came in here for a reason." She thought for a moment. "Oh! Hermione, go out to the stables. Lucius has... Just go out to the stables."

I narrowed my eyes and looked at Narcissa, who didn't appear to have any idea what Ginny was talking about. I gently pulled away from my friend and made my way through the house to get outside.

It was a short walk along the immaculate path through the back garden, and then out to where the old stables rose up near the Quidditch pitch Lucius had had installed for Draco. Apparently Abraxas had kept thestrals, and Lucius had never got around to having the stables removed,

He stood there, blond and imperious, overseeing-

"Lucius." I stopped, arms folded in front of me, eyes narrowed in challenge. "Is that what I think it is?"

He looked over at me from where he was watching a young man grooming a miniature pony, completely nonplussed. "I would assume so, my dear, your powers of observation are quite impressive."

"Looks a little small for Ginny."

"Surely you can deduce a good reason for that." He lifted his eyebrow in challenge.

I sighed. "Lucius, we talked about this."

"I'm certain you're aware that the young _Mr Potter_ intends on gifting her a broom."

I did know that. Harry was so excited about it. Apparently Sirius had given him one for his first birthday, and now he was passing on the sentiment. One of the things he and Draco agreed on, was that Amelia was going to make an excellent Seeker one day. Of course, that agreement was usually followed by (mostly) good-natured bickering over which House she would be a Seeker for. "Brooms don't bite. Especially toy brooms that are enchanted to keep young children from falling off of them."

He walked over to me, walking stick tucked securely in the crook of his arm. "I selected her specifically for her temperament. The saddle has been enchanted the same way."

I sighed again and tried and different tack. "Horses are herd animals, aren't you afraid she's going to get lonely?"

"This is why four more animals are being delivered here within the week." He sounded so unbearably smug. "I simply wanted to ensure that my granddaughter's gift was here for her party."

I looked up at his haughty countenance, knowing I'd lost this one. I didn't really have a logical reason for him _not _to get her a pony and teach her how to ride, which was the only reason I let it go. "You know, I told Ginny about breast pumps." His eyebrow lifted in question. "She'll be able to express her milk so that _anyone_ will be able to get up with the twins in the night."

He stared down at me until I smiled serenely at him. Lucius absolutely loved his baby boys, but he was quite glad of the excuse not to stay up with them in the middle of the night. "So you'll be able to bond with them a little more," I elaborated pointedly. I'd learned to pick my battles with the elder Malfoy, and subtly get one over on him whenever I could.

"Thank you." His tone indicated that those weren't his first choice of words. "Allow me to escort you back to the house." He offered me his arm and I took it automatically. I'd become quite used to going about with Lucius and had come to understand that it meant taking his arm and letting him open doors for me, whether or not I wanted him to. I'd told him on more than one occasion that I could open my own doors and he would just stand there silently, one eyebrow raised, resolutely holding the door until I stepped through it. I had given it up quite early on as being something that wasn't worth arguing over.

"I trust you are adjusting to being back at work." Lucius was of the opinion that a mother should be at home with her children, at least until they went off to Hogwarts. That had been an argument I'd thought worth having with him, and we had, after a time, agreed to disagree, with the condition that he wasn't to bring it up anywhere in my presence.

I sighed. "It's a complete shambles, Lucius. I'm having to go over everything that's been done in the last year." I couldn't keep the frustration out of my voice.

"Are the results satisfactory?"

"Some of them."

"Do keep in mind that if the results are acceptable, it may not be necessary that the process to arrive at them is the same as yours."

I looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "_You're_ lecturing me on compromise?"

"My wife has ensured that I am quite well-versed in the subject."

I had to laugh at that, and after a moment, he joined in. Ginny was definitely a match for her very strong-willed husband.

"And how are you taking the engagement of my first-born?" he inquired after another moment.

I had to smile. "I'm happy for him, for both of them. I think she's really good for him." I stared up at him. "I am a little worried, though." If I wanted to talk about hard truths, Lucius was the person to speak to. "I'm worried about what happens when they get married and start having children of their own..."

"You're concerned about Amelia being displaced from our affection."

I nodded. "It seems a little silly, but she's... Mine. And I'm not really related to anyone."

"I must admit, I'm also concerned. When you do find someone to complete your family with, are you still going to want to be a part of our family?" He slowed his steps, and I did as well. This was important to talk about, and neither one of us really wanted to do it in front of other people. "Hermione, you are a part of the family. I consider you something between a sister and a daughter. Draco marrying Astoria isn't going to make Amelia any less my granddaughter, and I know Narcissa feels the same."

"But Draco will probably see her less."

He stopped completely and turned to face me, taking both of my hands in his. "Yes. He likely will." I couldn't stop the tear that trickled down my cheek. "I have two young sons, and I see Draco less than I did, simply because they live with me and take up so much attention, and he lives elsewhere. However, simply because his mother isn't the woman I'm married to, it doesn't mean I love him any less. It's somewhat different; Draco is a grown man, obviously, and Amelia is still a baby. But I don't believe that either one of you will allow him to fade from her life." He pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to me. "Do you ever carry a handkerchief?"

"I should." I had about a half a drawer full of handkerchiefs from both Malfoy men. I wiped my eyes and tucked it into my own pocket, I knew better than to offer to give it back.

He continued as though he'd never stopped. "And there will come a time when you also find a wizard to marry. Motherhood suits you; I don't imagine that you're going to stop with just the one child."

I shook my head. I rather doubted my ability to find another wizard to become seriously involved with, but if it happened, I would probably want to have more children. "I will always want you in her life, Lucius." I raised my eyebrow. "Even though you bought her a pony."

He smiled that smug smile and tucked one of my hands in his arm again so we could continue back to the house. "Don't worry, my dear, any future children of yours will also be gifted similarly."

"Because that's what I was worried about."

"Do you also want a horse?"

"Lucius!"

He laughed. When we came to the door, he held it open for me, and we went through the the ballroom.

Just about two hours later, the ballroom was completely set up for a one-year-old's birthday party. We had discussed holding it outside, but it wasn't reliably sunny in Wiltshire, even in April. Kitty appeared with a crack. "Missy Hermione, baby Amelia wakes up."

"Thank you, Kitty." House-elves love babies, almost as much as part-kneazles. The affection was mutual, Amelia seemed fascinated by those large green eyes. "Excuse me." I walked away from where I'd been sitting and talking with Draco and Astoria, and headed through the manor to where our rooms were tucked away on one of the far ends. I wished, not for the first time, that the house wasn't charmed against Apparation.

She was sitting up in her cot, chewing on the edge of one of her cloth books. As soon as she saw me, she reached up with a smile. "Mumma!"

"Baby!" I went over and lifted her up into my arms. "Did you have a good sleep?"

"Seep," she echoed, cuddling against me. She was a very affectionate child. "Cook?" He usually hopped into bed with her whenever she woke up at home, after meowing to let me know she was up.

"Crookshanks is at home," I reminded her gently. "But Artie and Abraxas will be coming to your party. And Remus and Summer will be here." Summer was Sirius and Luna's second child, born the past November.

"Dog."

I laughed. All of the young children loved it when Sirius changed into his animagus form. "Yes, Mia, later." Mia was a nickname given to her by Victoire who, unable to pronounce her Ls, had called her A-mee-a. "Are you ready to see everyone today? Your party is going to start soon."

"Dog."

By the time we got back to the ballroom, people had already started arriving. Draco immediately took his daughter and threw her up in the air, making her laugh and squeal.

When he put her down, though, she immediately toddled over to Sirius and pulled on his trouser leg. "Dog."

I sighed. "Sorry, Sirius, Padfoot is one of her favorite things in the world right now."

He leaned over and picked her up. "Later, Mia," he told her gently. He continued talking to her, but my attention was pulled away as someone looped an arm around my waist.

"Harry!" I turned and gave him a hug.

He embraced me and then looked down at me expectantly when we parted. "You don't happen to have a date for the Victory Ball, do you?" He was at once hopeful and anxious.

"What happened to Katie?" A quick look around the room showed that she was there, chatting with Angelina and George.

"She's not exactly here with me." As we watched, Ron walked up to her and there was a borderline-inappropriate kiss. I'd seen him in much the same state with Lavender all those years ago, and it was still somehow both entrancing and repulsive, like I was watching them trying to inhale each other's tonsils.

"Ah." I looked up at him, eyebrow raised. "Do I want to know?"

"Probably not." He grinned. "So. Do you have a date?"

"Of course not. Andromeda volunteered to watch Amelia, though, so I will actually be going this year." I hadn't been sorry to miss the previous year's event. Amelia had been two weeks old at the time, and I didn't want to leave her to go and be uncomfortable at the Victory Ball all evening long.

"Can I pick you up at quarter to seven?"

"You're sure you want to go with me? I'm sure you could find someone in the next three weeks that you actually want to go with. As a date, I mean."

"No, thank you. I think I'm done with that for a while, I haven't exactly had the best of luck. Besides, it's much more fun watching the Daily Prophet print their retractions about what they print about you." He grinned at me, and I swatted his shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a little strange not going to work on Amelia's birthday. I'd just gone back to work a few weeks ago and I was used to the weekday routine that got us both out the door. Kingsley had been quite insistent, however, which meant that when Crookshanks hopped on the bed to let me know that Amelia was awake, I wasn't quite sure what to do with the day.

I got us up anyway; breakfast, then shower, then clothes, and then we sat in the sitting room. Rather, I sat, and she raced around on the toy broom Harry had given to her. She wasn't quite sure about the pony yet, which I had secretly gloated over, just a little bit; but the broom was her new favorite thing, after Crookshanks and Padfoot. And the stuffed dragon Charlie had given her, which was clutched in front of her on the broom.

I ended up doing some work. I'd managed to bring a few files home the previous evening when I was finished with work. I was still trying to catch up on the things I'd missed during my absence, and fitting it in with the current work I was doing took a little bit of juggling.

Eventually, it was time to get up and go down to London to have lunch with Narcissa. I got Amelia all bundled up against the rain, and carried her downstairs and across the street to Apparate. We landed on the front step of 12 Grimmauld Place, and I opened the door and stepped inside. "Hello," I called softly as I set Amelia gently on the floor.

Narcissa came towards us, and stopped to help Amelia take off her cloak and Wellies. "How are you?"

"Good, thank you." I paused. "A bit restless. I got used to being back at work, and I'm not entirely sure what to do with myself."

"I would suggest a hobby, but it seems work is your hobby."

"Something like that." I smiled at her and turned from where I'd hung my cloak beside the door to exchange a kiss on the cheek with her. "How are you?"

"Very well, thank you. Ginny said she would join us today if she could manage to leave the house." She took Amelia's hand, and we all walked slowly down toward the kitchen. Lunch was laid out on the table for us, including bite-sized pieces on Amelia's high chair for her. "She mentioned that Abraxas is teething and is having a hard time sleeping."

I nodded sympathetically. Giving potions to infants was a tricky proposition, but I'd found a Muggle remedy that had been worked like a dream with Amelia. "I'll send her the tablets I used with Amelia when I get home."

"I'm certain they'll appreciate it." She poured the tea for us while I got my daughter settled in her high chair to eat.

Lunch was pleasant. Ginny ended up sending Kitty to tell us that Master Abraxas wasn't having a good day and she was sorry that she wouldn't be able join us. My poor friend was probably too tired or frustrated to focus on a Patronus.

After we got home, I stopped inside just long enough to get the tablets, and then I Apparated out to Malfoy Manor myself.

Ginny was at her wit's end. I put Amelia down for a nap in her cot with her stuffed dragon, tucked Ginny into her bed with some water, got Abraxas some of the teething tablets, after which he immediately wanted to nurse and then fall asleep, and sat and read to Artie while he chewed on his fist. When he was ready to nap, I went to the library and lost myself in books until Amelia woke up.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing at home. Rather, I relaxed, and Amelia toddled around the house after Crookshanks, holding her poor stuffed dragon by the tail, and trying to catch my endlessly patient half-Kneazle, shrieking with laughter whenever he would launch himself over his head.

Draco and Astoria came by for dinner. Astoria had moved out of the flat above mine to move into Draco's house. We shared a nice dinner, and Draco tucked Amelia into bed, and then we sat in my sitting room together.

"I like being here to put her to bed," he commented from his place on my sofa, where he was sitting with Astoria's feet in his lap.

"I know. She does too." I looked up from where I was folding the laundry I'd done after work the previous day. Before I had Amelia, I would have never let laundry sit unfolded for a day. Now, though, I was learning that housework would still be there when I got around to doing it. "She's decided that she's done nursing, so if you want to take her overnight, just let me know ahead of time." We'd talked about that very thing before. Amelia had been fighting against nursing for a little while, only consenting to doing it when she woke up in the morning, and when we'd got up yesterday, she'd just refused to nurse altogether. She'd refused again when we got up this morning, too. That had been the only obstacle to her staying the night with her father.

"You sure?" Astoria asked. "If you're not comfortable..."

"It's fine." I smiled up at them before turning my attention back to the clothes piled on the floor in front of me. "I mean, I'm a little nervous about it, just because I've never spent the night away from her before, but she loves you both, and... You're her daddy and almost-step-mum." I was more than a little nervous about it, but that wasn't their fault.

They exchanged a look, and I saw something significant pass between them. "What?" I asked warily.

"You need to start dating again," Draco announced.

"I'm... sorry?" I looked between them, trying to figure out where this was coming from.

"Dating. You go out and spend some time with someone you could potentially be sexually attracted to?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "Thank you, Draco, your powers of explanation are overwhelming."

He smirked at that. "How long has it been since you've had any between-the-sheets time with anyone else?"

"I don't know, the last time was with _you_, so how long does that make it?"

Astoria winced. She was surprisingly comfortable with the idea that he and I had a past that involved mashing our genitalia together, so her wince wasn't out of being reminded of that. "Don't you want to go out?"

I did, actually. I loved my little girl, but sometimes I just wanted to go out and actually be a woman instead of just a milk-making, book-reading, nursery-rhyme-singing machine. "Right. Who's going to go out with a single mother?"

"Marcus Flint," he answered promptly.

I stared at him for a minute. "Are you serious?"

"Quite." He was smirking again, and I glared at him.

"He was an absolute arse in school."

"I was an absolute arse in school."

"That's true. You still are." He tossed a pillow at me and I caught it easily. After a moment, I sighed. "I don't know..."

"I think that if you'd let yourself notice, you'd realize that a lot of wizards would be interested in going on a date with you. No one our age cares that you have a baby." What Astoria was saying was true. Most of the people who objected to my marital status were in the next generation.

"Why is that, anyway?" I wondered out loud.

"After what we went through at school, and what those of us who weren't allowed at school went through, this doesn't really seem like something to worry about. If anything, it just proves that you're ready and able to repopulate the wizarding world."

I sighed again, but I was nodding this time. It wasn't a coincidence that there was a population boom after each war. It happened in the Muggle world and it was apparently happening in ours as well. Molly was certainly getting quite a brood of grandchildren. "Still, though, Marcus Flint?" He'd had to repeat his final year at Hogwarts, he played Quidditch... He and I didn't exactly have a lot in common.

"He's grown up well, Hermione." Astoria's nonchalant comment made Draco look over at her, and it was her turn to smirk. "I'm sitting on the sofa of the witch who had your one-year-old daughter, who's sleeping just down the hall. I don't think you have any place to look at me like that."

"I don't know... What about Amelia?" I broke in, before Draco could come up with any sort of response.

I received identical pointed looks from the sofa. It was a stupid question. I had no shortage of volunteers to watch Amelia if I wanted to get out for a night by myself, starting with the wizard and witch sitting together on my sofa. And I had _just _mentioned that she was ready to spend the night away from me. I was running out of excuses. The truth was, although I didn't want to admit it out loud, I was a little scared of dating again. Or, more like terrified. "What if he expects... things?"

"It's been a year and a half since you've had sex, are you really going to complain?"

I fired the pillow back at Draco, and he was laughing when he caught it. "I'm not that type of woman. Do you remember the conversation we had where I told you that I'm not cut out for casual relationships?"

He continued like I hadn't said anything. "Friday. You're going out with him on Friday."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I am?" He'd already set this up. And Astoria knew about it, judging from the entirely unsurprised look on her face.

"Yes. He's picking you up here at six. I'll collect Amelia from my mother, and then you just need to worry about coming home and getting ready. We'll keep her overnight unless we hear differently from you. I told him that you like to be asleep at a reasonable hour because she wakes up early."

"You've thought of everything, haven't you?" I asked just a little sourly. It was a rhetorical question.

"What do you have to lose?" Astoria asked me, a little more gently. "At worst, you go out, you don't have a good time, you come home and curl up with your cat and go to sleep in a nice, quiet house. And at the very least, you get out of the house for some actual adult conversation for a little while, somewhere that isn't work."

"I'm having adult conversation right now!"

"You're having adult-futile-arguments right now." She gave me a pointed look. "You might actually have fun, Hermione."

"You do remember what fun is, don't you?" Draco added with a smirk, and I rolled my eyes at him.

"You set this all up without me?"

He gave me a pointed look. "If I'd come to you and said, 'Marcus Flint wants to take you out, what should I tell him?' you would have turned him down without even thinking about it. He's really looking forward to it, you know. And now you feel obligated."

I did feel a little obligated. It wasn't Marcus' fault that Draco had set this up behind my back, and for all I knew, he really was looking forward to it. Although I found that a little hard to believe. "Damn it." He knew he'd already won, and he was almost unbearable smug. I wished I still had the pillow to throw at him. "You're sure he knows he's going out with me? And he actually wants to?"

"Yes, to both."

I knew part of it was that Draco and Astoria were so happy together. A lot of people, when they've decided they're in happy, committed relationships, want to pair up all of their friends as well. Then they have more couples to go out with. Lavender had tried to do the same thing when she was with Ron, although that may have also been partially motivated by jealousy.

I sighed. "Where does he want to take me?"

"I don't know." From his tone, it was a very stupid question.

"Then how do I know what to wear? Are we going somewhere I'm going to need formal dress robes, or are we going to go and plant trees somewhere?" I narrowed my eyes at him. "For setting me up on a date, you're being unbelievably short-sighted about it."

"You'll do it, then?" He was so smug.

I sighed. "Yes. But if it has anything to do with Quidditch, I am sending you a Howler." I knew that Marcus was a professional Quidditch player, and I wanted nothing to do with my first actual evening out being spent on something I really wasn't that interested in. It had been different when Ginny played Quidditch- I'd gone to most of her games to support her- but I certainly didn't know him well enough for that.

"I think you'll have fun. You could even end up with a date for the Victory Ball." Astoria was smiling, happy that I'd capitulated.

"I have a date."

They stared at me, each with an eyebrow raised. "An _actual_ date," she clarified.

"I'm not going to cancel on my friend just because I have one not-unpleasant evening with someone." I shook my head. "If we even have a not-unpleasant evening. It's been forever since I went out on an actual date." Years. I'd had one actual date. Ever. Ron and I had just sort of started a relationship after the war had ended, and I'd eventually just started sleeping in his room all the time, even though Molly pretended that I wasn't. "What do I even do?"

"Relax," Astoria soothed. "He doesn't expect you to do anything. Just go, eat, talk, and then come home."

If only it was that simple.

**A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! :D Avalon-Mist- I did too. When I mentioned that my muse had a fit and I had to rewrite a good chunk of the story, that's what it was. Apparently it's _not_ going to be Seamus.**


	3. Chapter 3

Marcus Flint knocked on my door at precisely six, which I had to admit was a point in his favor. I couldn't stand being late- my habit of being early to everything had even caused Lucius to remark that I was having a good effect on his son's habit of tardiness.

Obviously, Draco had been a little more forthcoming to Marcus than he had to me. There was a pointed lack of flowers, which I appreciated, and a lack of anything even remotely resembling Quidditch. "Good evening." He took my hand and kissed it, causing me to raise an eyebrow, but I was smiling as well. I'd had some serious misgivings about the date, after some of the interactions we'd had in school. So far, though, he hadn't even sneered at me once.

"Hello. You look good." Astoria was right, Marcus Flint had grown up well. He was tall, of course; he'd been tall in school. He still had the burly Quidditch physique, and his shirt was practically straining across his shoulders. He was well-groomed, at some point he'd had his teeth fixed- rather at some point he'd probably lost majority of his teeth playing Quidditch and they'd been regrown in better order. Of course, I couldn't really begrudge him that after what had happened to my own teeth. "Won't you come in?"

I stood aside so he could move past me into my little flat. I kept it tidy out of habit, and I'd refused Ron's suggestion that I might want to move all of Amelia's larger toys and things from the sitting room into her room. Marcus knew I had a baby, I wasn't going to hide it from him.

"This is nice," he said. "You look... nice."

"Thank you." I paused. "Am I going to need a cloak?" Draco had insisted on being singularly unhelpful in finding out anything about the date.

"I don't think so. We're going for curry in Wimbourne... If that's alright with you," he tacked on, almost as an afterthought.

I was glad I'd gone with a simple dress and a cardigan. "That sounds lovely." I checked to make sure I had my wand, and picked up my handbag from its spot on the kitchen counter. "I think I'm ready to go."

"Right."

So it was a little awkward. Not unpleasant, at least.

It was a little odd to go out without the bag full of things specifically dedicated to Amelia. I felt like I was actually missing something, even though I knew I wasn't. He preceded me down the stairs and then walked beside me to go across the street to Apparate. Instead of offering me his arm, he wrapped his arms around me and pressed me against his chest and I wasn't quite sure how I felt about that. He smelled good, but... I didn't know him that well.

When we appeared in a little alley, I slipped away from him immediately. He noticed, I'm sure, but he didn't say anything. We walked out of the alley and around the corner to the front door of the curry place together.

He ordered for me. To his credit, he did ask what I wanted first, so he wasn't just ordering me random things from the menu. And I knew it was likely a holdover from the old traditions that a lot of members of wizarding society still practiced. It still wasn't... Lucius didn't even order for me. Then again, Lucius would get an earful if he tried.

Dinner was pleasant enough. There was some uncomfortable silence, and we chatted about things like the weather and Quidditch- which, given what he did professionally, was likely unavoidable. It wasn't... bad... It just wasn't great. The food was good, though.

After we ate, he came around the table to pull out my chair for you. "Do you want to go and get some dessert in Diagon Alley?"

I stood up and picked up my handbag. "I don't go into Diagon Alley too often anymore. A lot of people there don't agree with my 'lifestyle choices.'"

"Lifestyle choices?"

"I had a baby and didn't immediately rush out and get married."

He offered me his arm and I took it out of habit. His other hand settled out of mine in a very familiar way, and we walked out of the restaurant. "So where do you go to do your shopping?"

"Hogsmeade. It's closer, anyway."

"And Malfoy owns it." He nodded. "Makes sense, I suppose. Still, though, it's a bit daft that you're letting them drive you out of Diagon Alley."

I looked down at where his large paw was trapping my hand against his arm. I very much wanted my hand back. "What do you mean?" I asked in a warning tone.

"My father supported the losing side during the war. Now that I have a higher profile life, I hear about it. No one says anything to my face, but I hear the whispers behind my back. Letters too, I usually get a Howler at least once every couple of months. I just ignore it, go about my life. They just want to see you react, it makes them feel better about themselves."

I looked up at him, eyebrow raised. I didn't ask if that's what he'd done in school, but apparently he was able to read it on my face. "I used to do the same thing. Turns out that the people who try the most to make you unhappy, are the unhappiest themselves."

I wondered why he'd been so unhappy in school, and I felt a pang of sympathy for him. I could see the sense in what he was saying. "I suppose..."

"Why do you care, anyway? You're happy with your life, aren't you? Why do you let it bother you?"

"You're also built a bit like an ogre." I realized what I'd said when he laughed, and I could feel the hear rising in my face. I rushed on. "No, that's... I mean... I don't mean you look like one, you're just tall and broad- intimidating. No one wants to cross you. I don't look particularly intimidating."

"You do when you're angry."

I smiled a little bit. "Tell me you've never fought with someone who said something to you."

"To my face? I have." And was completely unrepentant about it, going from his tone.

"I can't exactly do that."

"No, but you have that way of not looking at people you don't think are worth your time. I think it works better, it drove me mad in school."

"What?"

We came to a stop in the alley, and he turned towards me and looked down into my face. "You look at someone with your eyebrows up, sort of, and then you look away and just completely dismiss them like they're not worth your time." He grinned suddenly. "And I hear you have a bit of a temper."

"People can say what they like about me, but no one speaks badly of my daughter," I said fiercely.

He lifted his hand from where it was still resting on mine to point at my face. "That look. That's the scary one."

I looked up at him for a moment, incredulous. Then I had to laugh. "Maybe you're right."

"Of course I'm right." He was still a little arrogant, but I was used to arrogant. It was practically a Malfoy family trait. "It's still fairly early. You sure you don't want dessert? Hannah Longbottom makes pretty good pie."

I considered it for a moment. "Alright." It had been a while since I'd seen Hannah and Neville, and I knew they certainly didn't care that I'd had Amelia outside of marriage.

He put his arms around me to Apparate, and then again after we'd finished dessert and he saw me home. He offered me his arm to walk across the street, and held the door so I could lead the way up to my flat.

"Thank you for a lovely evening," I said, pausing in front of the door. I wasn't inviting him in.

"It was fun. We should do it again." I said something suitably noncommittal, and he continued. "Do you have a date for the Victory Ball?"

"I do, actually." I mentally thanked Harry.

"Then I'll owl you." He leaned down and, a little to my surprise, his lips touched my cheek. And then he turned away and was walking down the stairs.

I let myself in. It hadn't been a horrible evening, but... Coming home to a flat that was entirely too quiet made me realize how much I'd missed Amelia. Crookshanks didn't seem too happy, either. He was sitting and waiting for me just by the door, and when I came in, he started winding around my ankles and meowing that questioning meow of his.

"I know. She'll be home in the morning."

I didn't sleep very well. I kept waking up and expecting to hear her stirring and turning over, but it was entirely too silent in my flat.

The next morning, Astoria dropped her off shortly after breakfast. She told me she'd forbidden Draco from coming because he wanted to interrogate me about my date. She didn't ask any questions, but from the sympathy in her eyes, I think she could see exactly how it had gone.

It was Saturday, which meant that shortly after Astoria left, it was time to get Amelia and I ready for our Muggle library group. After that, as usual, some of the mums walked down to the bakery that was just a couple of streets over. I joined them. Melody, one of the mums who was particularly friendly with me, sat at the table with us with her little boy. "So," she prompted, "what's new?"

I couldn't really talk about work. I couldn't really talk about what I was in the middle of reading. So, I settled on the only thing I could talk about. Just as long as I didn't mention that I'd gone down to Wimbourne... "I had a date last night, actually." I gave Amelia a little piece of my scone.

"Really?" Melody looked a little surprised. I couldn't really blame her, I'd been a little surprised, too.

"Mia's dad set it up. Someone I knew from school."

"It's so weird that you're close enough that he would set you up with someone else." She was a single mum, too. Her relationship with the father of her child was nothing like what I had with Draco. She told me he was in London, and he was welcome to stay there. Muggle Britain was a lot larger than than wizarding Britain was.

"Well, he sort of guilted me into it."

"So weird," she repeated. "So how was it?"

"It wasn't... bad... It was better than I thought it would be." My tone wasn't exactly convincing.

She picked up on it. "But...?"

Amelia kept reaching for my cup of tea, so I gave her a straw to play with. She loved straws. It frustrated Draco a little that with all of the wonderful wizarding toys she had access to, her favorite things to play with were straws and boxes. "He was surprisingly nice, but we didn't really have a lot in common."

"What does he do?"

It was questions like these that made coming out to socialize like this difficult. "He plays sports."

"Football?"

"I think so." Made even more difficult by the fact that I'm a horrible liar.

"You don't even know what he plays? Doesn't sound too memorable. Muscles, though?" She gave me a cheeky smile.

I remembered the way his shirt had strained across his form. "Yes."

She laughed. "Then who cares how much you have in common!" When I didn't laugh, her expression turned to one of sympathy. "Maybe you're just not ready to date."

"I don't think so. I mean, it wasn't really bad... I just missed Mia and I couldn't quite relax and enjoy myself."

"So you're not ready to date. Nothing wrong with that. And when... Doyle?" I knew who she was talking about.

"Draco."

"Draco tries to set you up again, just tell him you're not ready. If he wants someone to date so badly, he can go out with his football players himself."

"He's engaged."

She lifted her son into her lap, he was starting to get a little restless. "Well, that explains it. The newly engaged always want to set us single people up."

"The first little while was nice, though. I was able to have an adult conversation without someone climbing on me and asking for straws." It wasn't so bad, even though we were talking about Quidditch.

She laughed again. "Too right. So go out with girlfriends. Another mum who understands and isn't just going to want to go out and get pissed." She sounded a little bitter. She was a little younger than me, and I suspected that most of her friends were still more concerned with clubbing than nappies. And from the look in her eyes, she was about to ask me the one question I couldn't really get around. _What's your number?_

Phones- all electronics, really- didn't work around magic. It was why Arthur had a separate garage to tinker around in, and even then, some of his Muggle things had a tendency to break. And there was no excusing it, it was absolutely unthinkable that someone- especially a single mother- would be without a phone.

"You're right. School will let out soon." I started clearing up after our tea and gathering Amelia's things together. "One of my friends, her husband is a teacher at boarding school. I know he'll watch the little ones so she and I can get out for a bit."

"You off, then?" She was clearly disappointed, and I felt just a little guilty.

"I've got to report back. I'm a little surprised Draco hasn't already tracked me down to ask how it went." I had never been more thankful that he'd never learned how to cast a Patronus. Then the Obliviators would have to be called in...

"I'll see you next time, then."

"Of course." I smiled brightly and picked up Amelia to head out the door. I felt absolutely horrible. Melody was obviously in desperate want of the same thing I was, but I couldn't help her. No phone, no way she could come to visit at my flat, no way to contact me to visit at hers. I was going to have to stop our Saturday morning trips into town. Amelia wouldn't mind, she was still young enough that she didn't really understand. I was a little upset at the thought, though. Melody and the other mums were nice. They didn't judge me, they just automatically included me. It was just getting too hard to continue associating with the Muggle world.

I supposed I could have just taken her number and called her from a public phone, but getting closer with her would just be more complicated. Chances were fairly good that Amelia was going to be a magical child, and then I would have to deal with uncontrolled magic. Or she would say something- young children aren't exactly known for their ability to censor themselves. It was more than a little frustrating.

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! Muses are fickle indeed, mine's been... Unable to focus. *cough* **


	4. Chapter 4

Conveniently, Victory Day- May 2- was a Friday that year. One of Kingsley's first acts as Minister of Magic had been to turn it into a holiday, which meant a long weekend for most of us.

Andromeda came by to pick up her great-niece shortly after Amelia's afternoon nap. It was five years since she'd lost her daughter, and I knew that she usually liked to spend the day alone with Teddy. I'd asked her if she was sure she wouldn't mind taking Amelia, and she'd insisted, so I was summarily left alone in my flat.

Shortly after she left, there was another knock at my door. I wasn't sure who it could be, I wasn't expecting anyone else. I'd agreed to meet Harry at Hogwarts- because the Great Hall was cleared out every year for the event- and everyone else I knew would more than likely be staying home until it was time to get ready.

I'd just sat down on the sofa, and I got up again to open the door. "Harry?" I moved aside to let him into the flat, and he went right into the kitchen and started making himself a sandwich.

"Help yourself," I told him a touch facetiously, following him and then stopping just outside the kitchen to watch him.

"I will, thanks." My tone obviously didn't bother him.

"Do you not have food at your own flat?"

"Ron's been a little occupied lately, and I've been too busy at work to get out and do the shopping. Robards is using my eventual takeover of his position as an excuse to get me to do more of his paperwork."

"So instead of doing the shopping now, when you have a bit of time, you came over here to eat my food?"

He looked up at me and grinned, completely unabashed, before turning his attention back to what he was doing. "Absolutely."

I folded my arms. "And where are your dress robes?" He was wearing Muggle jeans and gray T-shirt.

"Honestly, Hermione, the Ball's not for _hours_. We can just stop by my flat on the way up to Hogwarts."

I refrained from mentioning that his flat down in London wasn't exactly on the way from mine up to Hogwarts. He would just give me that even look and remind me that he was a wizard.

"Has Andromeda already stopped by to get Mia?"

"Yes, otherwise she'd be out here demanding you pick her up." Amelia loved Harry. His glasses, in particular, fascinated her.

He chuckled. "She's such a little love. How is Andromeda doing?"

I shrugged. "The same as she usually is today. I told her that I could find someone else to watch Mia if she'd rather not, and I think I offended her a little." I still felt a bit bad about that.

"I'm glad you've got family for her."

"I am too." He and I had shared many a previous conversation about our pointed lack of family in such a family-oriented world. Through the Blacks especially, Amelia, at least, was related to almost everyone. Talking about family reminded me I something I was still struggling with a little. "How do you keep up with your cousin, anyway?" He'd mentioned that he still kept in contact with his Muggle cousin, though not his aunt and uncle.

"Who, Dudley?" He looked up at me and watched me nod. "Regular post. I'm about London often enough that I just pop it in the post box. I've got my own letter box where he sends his to. He's getting married this summer, actually, I got an invitation and everything. I reckon once we both have kids we'll start getting actually getting together."

I sighed, sitting down at the table, and his eyes followed me. "I assume something specific prompted the question."

"Yes. I take- was taking- Mia to the library in town here, and I was getting on with one of the other mums, but..." I hadn't gone back the previous weekend. Amelia hadn't seemed to care, but I still did.

"The phone thing?" At my nod, he turned back to his food preparation. "It's tough. It's different than we were little too; it seems like everyone's got a mobile now. Dudley knows about what we are and understands that we have to communicate through letters, but I can't imagine trying to explain to a Muggle our age that not only do I not have a mobile, but if they want to talk to me they're going to have to send me a letter. He keeps telling me that it would be easier if I had a computer and we could just email each other. Reckon that's why all of the half-bloods we know- excluding Dean, of course- were raised in the wizarding world."

"And you."

He shook his head. "If my parents had lived, I would have been."

"True enough." I sighed. "It's just so frustrating. If the war was going to teach us anything, it should have been that we can't isolate ourselves from Muggle society so much. But they're growing in leaps and bounds, technologically speaking, and I had to rely on a Protean Charm to tell Molly when I was going into labor." I paused. "Or I would have, had I not been well on my way to having Amelia when I showed up for dinner."

He brought his plate over and settled down across the table from me to eat. "Well, you're in Magical Law. And I can't imagine that Kingsley disagrees with you."

I took a piece of tomato that was falling out the side of his sandwich. "He doesn't, of course. But the Wizengamot is quite firmly attached to the Statute of Secrecy. We've tried." I popped the tomato into my mouth and chewed thoughtfully for a moment. "Besides which, it's a matter of electronics simply not working very well around magic. I could, in theory, have a mobile. But the moment I went to heat up some water for tea, it could just, you know..."

"You should talk to Arthur. I know he got that car working with magic somehow." He shook his head. "Poor thing. Hagrid says that the centaurs say that it's still roaming around in the Forbidden Forest."

"I don't want a half-sentient mobile, thank you very much. It would probably try and eat my hair."

He laughed. "There's got to be a way to do it, though. The Wizarding Wireless works, and Molly's never been attacked by it, as far as I know; I'm sure we would have heard about it if she had." He paused, looking at me across the table, his green eyes thoughtful. "I reckon if someone could at least make mobiles work for us, there would be a lot of interest in it. Not everyone can do Protean Charms, and not everyone can cast a Patronus. Owls take time, you don't have a fireplace- and lots wizards and witches who live in flats don't." He looked at me, and he started to grin. "That's your project face."

I lifted an eyebrow. "I have a project face?"

"Yes. When you decide there's something that needs to be conquered, you get a very determined look on your face."

"Conquered?" I couldn't decide whether I should be offended or not.

"Conquered. I'd bet the entire contents of my vault that you're already working on a plan."

He wasn't exactly wrong. "Well, I was just thinking that this might be the just the kind of thing that George would be interested in. Speaking of the contents of your vault, though, we'd need a considerable amount of capital."

"One of your closest friends just happens to have married into the wealthiest wizarding family in Britain. And you can't tell me for one second that if you went to Malfoy yourself and batted those pretty brown eyes, he wouldn't just give you the key to his vault."

"Which one?"

He considered the question. "Either. Or both." He got up and went into the kitchen, peering around before finally pulling the milk out of the chilled cupboard and pouring himself a glass. "You need a coffee press."

"Why? I don't drink the stuff. And do you really think it would be a good idea to drink that much caffeine at this hour of the day?"

"Aurors drink it like water. We'll be up late, anyway." He was right about that. He settled down in the chair again to finish his food. "I got Ginny into it."

"Not me. I just can't stand the taste." I shuddered at the thought.

"You drink fancy coffee. Cappuccinos, lattes..."

"That's not really coffee, though. It's half milk, and it's loaded with sugar."

Harry just smiled and shook his head. He finished his sandwich and sat back in the chair, stretching his arms over his head. "What are you doing about dinner?"

There would be hors d'oeuvres at the Ball, but nothing really substantial enough to be a meal. "I thought I'd just do up a salad or something light before we got there." I didn't want anything too heavy, since I was going to be on my feet all night.

"Why don't we get some take-away and go to the cinema? We've got some time."

"I have to start getting ready soon. This," I pointed to my hair, "takes a considerable amount of time to make look even halfway reasonable."

"Looks fine as it is." When I merely arched an eyebrow at him, he grinned unrepentantly. "Right. Well, why don't I get some take-away and some coffee, since you refuse to get a coffee press even though almost everyone you know drinks it, and you can start whatever it is you ladies do."

I looked pointedly at his empty plate. "Didn't you just eat?"

"Just a snack. What?" he protested my silent look. "I'm a growing boy."

"I hope not. I'd have to get a pair of stilts to dance with you."

"I'm not as tall as Ron is."

"You may remember Ron and I didn't actually dance much." Every year, excluding last year, Ron and I would share exactly one dance, and then spend the rest of the evening socializing. I would always dance with other people because I actually enjoyed it, but he wouldn't.

"I thought that was because he's pants at dancing." That was certainly part of it. He didn't like to dance, so it wasn't something he put a whole lot of effort into doing well. All of his brothers could dance fairly well, but Ron just didn't care to.

"_You're_ pants at dancing."

"Oi! I'm better than I was! Took lessons and everything." I seemed to remember Ginny telling me something about that. He finished his milk and stood up. "Chinese okay?" He took his plate and glass into the kitchen and set them in the sink with a charm so they would wash themselves.

I nodded. "That's fine. Just let yourself in when you get back."

"Right." He moved around me, over to where the door was. He stopped and looked back at me. "Is Seamus going to leave his flat open tonight?"

"That's what he told me yesterday. Why?" I was a little suspicious. I knew that Harry had a floo in his own flat.

"I probably don't want to go home if Ron and Katie leave the Ball first. Back soon." The door opened and closed, leaving me alone again.

I stood up and went down to the bathroom to have a shower. Harry was considerably more light-hearted since the war had ended. Even more so since Sirius had re-emerged from the portal, and surprisingly, even more than that after Ginny had left him. That had been... tough. At first, at least. But then he realized that there was all of that history between them that they both had a very strong opinion on that neither was likely to change, that colored every meaningful interaction they had. I'd been with him the day that he'd returned the ring he'd bought to propose with, and he was really more relieved than anything.

And then he'd dated Katie. He didn't seem too upset that they'd split up, or that she was with Ron now. I thought they'd been perfectly happy together, they'd certainly seemed so, but apparently that wasn't everything it appeared to be.

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! :D I'm glad a lot of you liked my Marcus, he was fun to write! **


	5. Chapter 5

Harry came back while I was doing battle with my hair. I heard the door open and shut, and then just a short time later, "Food's on the table."

"Thanks." Ron was too used to Molly's cooking to really appreciate Chinese food too often, so Harry and I usually only had it when we were alone together.

It took a while, but at last I finally managed my hair into some sort of order, artfully piled up on top of my head with a few tamed curls draping down. Then it was time to get dressed, of course.

As I was going through my drawers for appropriate underthings, I pulled out the Order of Merlin and stared at it. "Where's yours?" I called down to him.

It took a moment for him to answer. He never spoke with his mouth full, thank Merlin. "My what?"

"Order of Merlin?"

He had an embarrassed-sounding laugh. "In my sock drawer."

I looked at mine for another moment before tucking it back away. They'd given them out like sweets at Christmastime when the war was finished. Ron, Harry, and I all had one. Remus Lupin and Professor Snape had both been awarded one posthumously. Kingsley had one, Professer McGonagall had one, Lee Jordan had one. Neville, Aberforth... There'd even been talk of giving Narcissa one, but that had never quite managed to happen.

But tonight was the most official night of the year, and we would all be announced with our Orders of Merlin. It was horrible and I hated it, but it happened. Every year. Mostly I just hated the expectation, the people staring, the reminder that I'd set ridiculously high expectations for the rest of my life with my involvement. And this year, of course, there would be the added disapproval of having Amelia out of wedlock. Order of Merlin, and I managed to have a bastard. Ridiculous. I wished I could just not care about it, like Luna never did.

I finished getting dressed, and walked back out to eat my dinner, kept at the perfect temperature by magic. Harry had already finished eating, and was sitting on my sofa doing some sort of paperwork. "Bringing work home?" I teased him.

"I've spent entirely too much time around you," he quipped, not bothering to look up at me.

I ate quickly, and then we went across the street to Apparate together to his flat in London. In hardly any time, he was ready too. It always amazed me how little time he spent making himself look presentable, and he usually ended up looking marvelous. "It's just not fair," I complained, adjusting the collar on his black dress robes.

"What's that?"

"Do you know how much time I had to spend just on my hair?"

He grinned at me. "I do, actually, I have a watch."

We flooed to the Hogwarts staff room. Most people would have to Apparate out to Hogsmeade and walk up to the castle, but most people weren't 'celebrated war heroes.' I was so tired of it. Here we were, five years later, still being touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I hesitated by the table, trailing my fingers along the back of one of the dark wooden chairs. Harry must have picked up on my mood, because he gave me a frustrated sort of smile. "We still have time to skive off and go to the cinema."

It was really tempting. I knew he was just as tired of it as I was- even more so because he was the great Chosen One. I sighed heavily. "Let's just get this over with. I haven't had a drink in almost two years, and I know they'll break out their best liquor."

He offered me his arm and a grin. "Already planning on getting pissed?"

"Let's just say that I'm not ruling it out." I took his arm and let him escort me out of the room.

Despite how early it was, people were already milling through the corridors outside the Great Hall. That was another reason I liked arriving early to the Victory Ball, there would be less people to stop and stare when we entered to great fanfare. There were still a good few faces that turned towards us, though, when we paused in the doorway. After a few years of doing this, we had the routine down.

"Mr Harry James Potter, Order of Merlin First Class. Ms Hermione Jean Granger, Order of Merlin Second Class." It was an enchantment placed on the doors themselves, the announcement made with Kingsley's deep, careful voice. I wasn't exactly sure why, it always slipped my mind to ask him. Maybe it was so we could all pretend that he'd announced us, even though he was nowhere to be seen.

We resumed walking into the room, and Luna immediately came over to us, smiling serenely and followed closely by her husband. We greeted them with hugs and kisses, and made small talk about how the children were doing.

The Great Hall had been transformed into something like what it had been for the Yule Ball. There was a cluster of tables and chairs at one end of the room, with enough space cleared for dancing, and decorated very simply, just with fresh flowers and the clear sky filled with stars above us.

"We should get together soon," I was telling Luna, mindful of what Melody had said to me. "The children can play, and we can be adults together."

She smiled beatifically. "That would be nice! I do enjoy being an adult with other people. The other professors are so very busy at this time of year, and the students don't like coming to me to help them study, because Remus is very curious."

I had to laugh. I could only imagine. Their son, who quite strongly resembled his father, was not only stubborn, but curious as well, and liked to touch and look at everything. Which meant that things you were trying to look at could quite suddenly be found in his little hands. Sirius said that child-proofing against him was almost a full-time job.

"Where are they?" I asked curiously.

"Asleep in our rooms." She sounded unconcerned. "Kreacher is watching over them."

I nodded. It wouldn't surprise me if Kreacher liked the babies just as much as Kitty liked the twins, and Amelia when we were there.

Everyone else arrived as we stood there talking. I was a little surprised to see Ginny show up on Lucius' arm. She looked almost relieved to be getting out, and I definitely empathized. She explained that she was there for an hour or two, until the twins got hungry again, at which time Kitty would arrive to collect her.

And then, of course, there was the first dance, which had to be done by the 'war heroes.' This year, that meant me and Harry, Ron and Katie, and all of the other assorted war-related Order of Merlin recipients. I was a little surprised to see Narcissa and Kingsley dancing together. They seemed to be having a good time, though, and of course they both danced very well.

Harry was... Well, he was Harry. He was a better dance partner than Ron was, which wasn't really saying much, but he was terribly enthusiastic. That helped.

The evening progressed much the same way the Victory Ball usually did. I had no shortage of partners to dance with, and the time in between was spent in friendly conversation. It was good to catch up with friends, I hadn't seen some of them since the last Victory Ball I'd attended, two years ago. Everyone wanted to know how Amelia was doing, and I was glad I'd thought to tuck a picture of her into my handbag.

It wasn't a bad evening, really, despite my hesitance over going. Ginny disappeared a couple of hours into the event, which seemed to make Lucius my de facto companion until he took his leave, about an hour later. He was an excellent social companion- he danced well and he was attentive without being smothering- and I didn't mind, despite not really needing one- and in fact being there with someone else, at least nominally. Harry and I were there as friends, though, and neither one of us felt any compunction to spend the evening at each other's side, at least any more than we would normally.

I wasn't quite drunk when things started winding down and I was ready to go home, but I wasn't exactly sober, either. I looked among the mass of people for my date. I found him talking with Neville and Luna, and I made my way over to him. I waited for an appropriate lull in the conversation. "I think I'm going to get home now."

"That's probably a good idea." His eyes scanned the room, but the only tall redheads left were Arthur, Percy, and Bill. "Especially since it looks like I'll be staying with you tonight."

There were a lot of goodbyes to make, though, and it was still a little while before we were actually walking up the stairs to my flat.

I shed my shoes by the door, and he did the same, followed quickly by his dress robes. "Do you want some tea?" I knew it would take me a little while to decompress from the evening, and I wanted to wait until my head was a little more steady before actually attempting sleep.

"Yeah, tea would be great." So I made us some tea, and we ended up sitting on my sofa. We'd both changed into sleep clothes while the tea was steeping, I'd had the foresight to suggest that he tuck something into my handbag while we were at his flat.

"Drinking in the sitting room?" he teased me as he settled back comfortably. "But what if I spill?"

"I promise you that the sitting room has seen a lot worse than just spilt tea." He chuckled, draping his arm across my shoulders. "Well," I said after a while, leaning my head against his shoulder. "That wasn't horrible."

"No, I think the anticipation of it is always so much worse than the actual event. I'm glad you were there this year, though. You know what they say."

"Misery loves company?" I covered my mouth for an ear-splitting yawn. "It wasn't so bad."

"Didn't Malfoy set you up with one of his thickheaded friends? Didn't want to chuck me to go with him?"

I swatted at his chest. "Marcus wasn't so bad."

"Marcus... Flint? Former captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team?" He sounded absolutely incredulous. "Plays for the Wimbourne Wasps?"

I shook my head. "Why does everything always have to come back to Quidditch for you?"

"Because it's the center of the known world, obviously."

I swatted him again, and he nearly spilled his tea on himself. "Careful!"

"Serves you right." I sighed. "Yes. Marcus Flint. It wasn't a bad time, really, I'm just not... quite ready for that whole thing yet. Dating, leaving Mia..."

"You didn't seem to mind being out tonight." He paused for a moment. "Or are you just better at hiding it?"

"It's different, though. There's no pressure. You're one of my best friends, and you already know Mia." I sighed again. "I just don't think dating is really my thing."

"You and me both." We fell silent for a time, and I finished my tea before setting the empty cup gently on the floor by my feet. When I sat back, I leaned against him again, and his hand closed over my upper arm. "Dudley's wedding, do you want to be my 'plus one?'"

"When is it?"

"June... 7? I think?"

I sat straight up to look at him. "Next month and you haven't RSVPed yet?"

He looked a little bit sheepish. "Well, I wanted to know if I was going to have a date or not. You'd be doing me a favor, though, now that I'm not with Katie anymore, I'm already getting the speculative looks. And of course, people who are happily involved..."

"... want to romantically entangle the rest of us as well. Right." I rolled my eyes and settled down against him again. "I'll go. You know, I've never met Dudley."

"You're not missing much, trust me." He must have been aware of how that sounded, because he rushed on to say, "He's a good bloke, I mean, just a bit bland is all."

"What about Mia?"

"If you can't find someone out of the Malfoy-Black-Weasley-Tonks family to watch her, I'm sure you could bring her with us. It's an afternoon wedding and all, didn't say anything about 'no children.'"

"Would you ask, please?" Mia wasn't anyone's responsibility except mine. Well, and Draco's. I still felt a bit wrong about it, though, asking him to take her so that I could get out socially.

"I will. I'll write him a note, pop it in the post on Monday."

"Thank you." I sat quietly for a few moments. "What about Percy's wedding?" Percy and Audrey were finally getting married, coming up in August. Molly was absolutely overjoyed about it.

"That's a bit far off, isn't it?"

I shrugged. "Just a few months. I'm fairly certain I'm not going to change my mind about dating by then." I was silent for a moment, my mind working. "But you might. Right. Well, I'll let Molly know that I won't be bringing a date, and then she'll know not to expect an additional body for me."

"You sound bitter," he observed gently, giving my arm a gentle squeeze.

My first response was to deny it out of hand, but Harry didn't say things like that lightly. "A bit, I suppose. Everyone is trying to get me to move ahead with some sort of love life, but I'm just not... I don't know. I look at it differently now. Any man I have a committed relationship with is not just going to be my partner, but it also going to be Mia's dad. And I don't know that there's anyone good enough."

"Ouch!" he protested, only half-kidding.

"Oh, not you. For the record, I think you'll make an excellent father. You're so good with Teddy. And Mia, too, when you're around her. And so would Ron- all of the Weasley men, actually- and quite a few other wizards I know. But all of the good ones are taken. Besides..." I had to break for another wide yawn. "I'm not easy to put up with."

I used my wand to summon us a blanket, and spread it over us. My eyes were already closing. I was up far later than I usually was, and the alcohol I'd consumed was making me extra sleepy. I'd get up in just a few minutes and get myself into bed. I was comfortable and warm, though, and I didn't want to move just yet.

"I don't know about that," I heard Harry say just before I fell asleep. "I seem to do it pretty well."

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! Kon Shun'u, that would make too much sense! ;) Seriously, though, that would be a fantastic idea!**

**So it's been a bit. But I think I'm back on track with this. **


	6. Chapter 6

I woke up in the morning in my own bed. That was strange, that was definitely not where I'd fallen asleep. I didn't hear Harry moving around, and he was just as much of an early riser as I was. A brief personal inventory showed Crookshanks asleep at my feet, and a note on the bedside table beside me. I picked it up and read Harry's messy writing. Apparently, Andromeda had dropped off Amelia already, and he'd taken her into town to do a bit of shopping. There was a momentary bit of... panic wasn't the right word. Worry, certainly. But I firmly tried to push it down. Harry was good with my daughter, and I knew he would never let anything happen to her. And, I had to begrudgingly admit as I did my best to ignore my anxiety, I did appreciate being able to sleep. What time was it, anyway?

Nine. I hadn't slept until nine in... longer than I could remember. Still, though, I was going to have to talk with Harry when he got back. I had a quick shower and got dressed, and went out to the main part of the flat just as Harry was opening the door.

"Mama!" As soon as she saw me, Amelia started squirming in her perch on Harry's hip, her little hands reaching for me. I took her from him and hugged her tightly.

"Did you have fun with Aunt Andy and Teddy last night?" I asked, and she happily patted my nose in response.

"Cook!" I felt my cat winding his way around my ankles, and she pointed down at him.

"Now I know where I rank!" I set her gently on the floor, and went into where Harry had carried several bags into the kitchen.

"What's all this?" I asked, pointing at his shopping.

"Well, you needed a coffee press, and I ate you out of house and home last night..." He gave me a quick grin before moving around the kitchen, putting things away.

"A coffee press?" My eyebrow rose. "And where do you think that's going to go?"

My tone didn't even phase him. "Just beside your range. After all, it needs hot water to work."

I watched him for a few moments. I wasn't too worried that he would put things away in the wrong places, he knew how particular I was about the order of my kitchen. I decided to drop the issue of the coffee press for something a little more important. I took a quick look around to see where Amelia had gone off to, and after just a moment, I could hear the delighted giggles that meant she'd followed Crookshanks into her room. He was almost as good of a nanny as a house-elf. "You know I trust you, right? Without question, I trust you."

He looked up from where he was making room beside my tea for a canister of coffee grounds. "But?" he prompted.

"Next time, just please wake me up and let me know before you go out with Amelia. I know you wouldn't let anything happen to her, but I would just feel better if I knew where she was going before she went there, does that make sense?"

He watched me for a moment, and I could see the regret in his green eyes. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think. You were just sleeping so soundly, and I thought we wouldn't be gone for long..." He was the epitome of contrition. "Next time, I'll let you know first. Let me make it up to you, I'll cook us all lunch."

"You're not working today?" Usually, he worked Monday through Friday, but occasionally, I knew he was called in to work weekends.

"Not until Monday. Robards likes me working the same shift that he does so that I can do his paperwork." He gave me a wry grin.

I felt a warm hand on the back of my leg, and I looked down to see Amelia clutching her stuffed dragon by one wing and pointing to the cabinet just above the range. "Boom!"

I gave a heavy sigh, which caused Harry to give me a questioning look. "She wants to ride her broom."

Harry gestured to the cabinet in question with his head. "It's up there, I take it?" At my nod, he reached up and extracted the toy broom, handing it to the little girl who'd walked over to him and was reaching up for it. "Here you go, Mia. Let someone who knows which end of the broom is which show you how to ride." He glanced up at me with a cheeky look on his face as he said it, and I had to smile as I shook my head.

They spent the rest of the morning tearing around my flat, making me glad that it was so well-enchanted with silencing charms. He tired her right out, too, we had to have lunch a little early so that she wouldn't fall asleep beforehand.

Given that Harry had been expected to cook for his aunt and uncle when he was a child, it was a little surprising that he enjoyed doing it so much now that he was an adult. But he expressed his affection through doing things for others, I think in part to make up for what he hadn't been shown as a child, and he really enjoyed cooking for his friends.

Which meant that lunch even met Amelia's approval, and she was going through a picky phase.

"Do you have any plans for this afternoon?" he asked, rescuing Amelia's lidded cup from the floor for the third time since we'd sat down to eat.

"After her nap, I thought I'd go see George for a while, see what he thinks about my mobile phone idea." I watched my daughter bring a fistful of food to her mouth. "I'd ask Arthur, but I think he's probably a bit too busy running things in his department."

Harry gave Amelia a look. "Now I think you think this is a game, don't you?" he asked her gently, and she gave him a big grin before shoving another fistful of food in her mouth. He ducked down and picked up her cup, and set it on the table beside him. "You could ask him anyway, see if he wants to help George on some of his days off." I knew why he'd suggested it. Arthur would be over the moon if he was able to be involved with altering Muggle technology like this.

"I'm not sure Molly would be too happy about that." I'd heard about the car. I hadn't seen it first hand, but she still talked about it- and never in a good way.

"Yes, but you gave her another baby to fuss over. She'll forgive you." It was true. Amelia had completely won Molly over, from the moment she was born. The Weasley matriarch insisted on being known as 'Nana' to all of the young children in our rather extended and convoluted family, even those that weren't technically her grandchildren.

"Maybe I will..."

Amelia was starting to throw handfuls of food on the floor instead of into her mouth, which was a sure signal that it was time for her to take a nap. I got her out of her high chair and carried her down the hall to her room, which was very pointedly lacking in pink. Who decided pastels are best for babies, anyway? Her room was mostly purple and blue, and I'd enchanted the ceiling to show a starry sky when the lights were off.

Crookshanks was already waiting for her, and curled up against her legs when I got her settled in to sleep. "Have sweet dreams, baby," I told her quietly, and left her there with her stuffed dragon and her favorite being in the world.

Harry was cleaning up her discarded food bits when I got back out to the kitchen, sending them flying through the air to my dustbin with an adept flick of his wand. "You don't need to do that," I told him, gathering the dishes to start the washing up.

"It's no trouble. Did you want to go see George now? The shop will probably be a little quieter at lunch time, and I know how you feel about going in there with Miss Grabby-Hands." While she wasn't quite as insistently curious as her cousin Remus, Amelia was still very inquisitive, and everything in George's shop was brightly colored. Sometimes it was a struggle just keeping her in my arms so she didn't wander off, touching things.

"I can't ask you to watch her like that." I scraped off the remaining food and set the dishes in my sink with Molly's charm to do the washing up. "She's my responsibility."

"Well, you didn't. I offered." He gestured into the sitting room, where he'd left his files the night before when we'd Apparated to his flat. "I was just going to finish catching up on my work, I might as well do that here."

I raised a suspicious eyebrow. "You just don't want to go back to your flat."

"Too right. The last time I went there after Katie and Ron had been drinking, I saw... Entirely more than I wanted to. We'll just leave it at that."

I stared at him for a moment, deciding that I probably really just didn't want to know. "Thank you. I'll make it up to you."

"You already did. You got me a coffee press."

"_You_ got the coffee press."

"Yes, but you're letting me disrupt the order of your kitchen with it." He went and settled himself on my sofa, spreading his papers in front of him again.

I had to check on Amelia before I left, I wasn't going to go if she was going to give Harry a hard time about napping. But she was already fast asleep, one hand curled around Crookshanks' tail, her silky blond hair spread across her pillow. She looked so peaceful, so sweet in her sleep.

When I walked back out to the sitting room, Harry was already engrossed in his work. "She's fast asleep. Thank you again. If you want to go out before I get back-"

He looked up at me from where he was sitting, one foot folded under him and the other resting on the floor. "I'll send a Patronus. I promise." He gave me a reassuring smile.

I picked up my handbag, and went outside to Apparate to Diagon Alley. School was still in session and it was lunch time, so the crowd of shoppers had thinned somewhat. I went down to the garish orange building and let myself in. Verity, the witch George had hired to help him out, was standing behind the counter and helping a steady stream of customer. George was nowhere to be found.

I walked through the bright aisles. "Is he upstairs?"

She nodded, handing her customer their change. "He came down for a little while earlier, and he said something about lunch. Or a nap. Or both."

"I'm headed up, I want to talk to him about something." I walked through the velvety magenta curtain that separated the back part of the building, and went up the flight of stairs. The narrow door at the top was closed, and I knocked quietly, just in case he and Angelina were sleeping.

After a moment, he opened the door. "Hermione? Come in." He moved aside, and I stepped up into their flat. Angelina was nowhere to be seen. "What brings you all the way down here?"

"I have an idea that I think you would be interested in, and I'm wondering if you had some time to talk about it."

"Er, alright." He gestured me over to his horrible green sofa, and we sat down. He had a very expectant look on his face. "Tea?" He'd been raised properly, he knew what his expectations as a host were.

"No, thank you." I filled him in with my ideas about the mobile phone, and his expression was in turn interested, thoughtful, and then excited.

"That's an excellent idea!" he enthused when I wound down. "I'd need a lot of different mobiles to play with, so that I can get a sense of what will work the best. We'd have to create something entirely new, of course, for the patent, but I'd need a good background study."

"I was thinking about asking your dad if he'd like to help, too."

He rubbed his hand across his jaw, nodding. "That would be a good idea, too. Nothing half-sentient like the car, but if there's anyone who knows how to dissect Muggle technology, it's Dad."

"I still need to secure financing, but I don't think that will be a problem." I could present it to Lucius as a lucrative business opportunity, and he'd give me an even look and then very likely hand me the key to his vault. Harry was right- even if I didn't mention it as a business opportunity, he'd probably do it anyway, but I didn't want this to be some kind of favor. "Malfoy financing."

"As a loan, or as a shareholder?"

I thought about that for a moment, my hands moving through the ends of my hair. "Which would you prefer?"

"Both, actually. Having shareholders gives new ventures a sense of legitimacy, but I don't want him owning the majority of it." His knee was bouncing, he didn't seem aware of it. "This is going to be a big undertaking."

I nodded. That made a lot of sense. "I'll talk to him about it. Probably tomorrow." I hadn't been planning on seeing him the next day, but once I got started on something, I liked to keep up momentum. "We'll need to go shopping in Muggle London." He thought for a moment. "And I'll probably get Lee involved, given his knowledge of the Wizarding Wireless."

I had to grin despite myself. I was getting quite excited about the prospect of all of this. "When are you available to go shopping? It'll have to be a weekend, more than likely, because of work."

"Next weekend I have something..." He stared at me, deep in thought again. "Two weeks? The 17th?" At my nod, he continued. "Do you have a pushchair for Mia? We'll probably be doing a lot of walking."

"I do." I rarely ever used it now that she could walk and we could Apparate, but I did have one tucked in the back of my hall cupboard. "It would probably be better to go in the morning, because she naps in the afternoon."

"That's fine. I can go right after we open the shop. Alright?"

"Great!" I stood up, prompting him to rise as well. "I'm really excited about this."

His broad grin matched my own. "I am too. Are you leaving now?"

"I need to get back. Harry's watching Mia, and I don't want him to be stuck there all afternoon." I hugged him, and went outside to Apparate home.

**A/N: They're... Getting there. I wanted to update again to make up for the long lack of them. Thank you for the reviews! *heart***


	7. Chapter 7

Lucius, as predicted, gave me an even look, and then said I would be receiving a copy of his vault key. He simply said to keep track of what we used, and, "Have young Mr Weasley draw up the terms he would like, and we'll negotiate them after you've finished all of the acquisition." That part was easy.

The next part wasn't quite so easy. The mobile phone stores didn't want to just sell us phones, especially not in mass quantities. They wanted us to sign up for their service to get even one. That was inconvenient. Once we found out that the correct phrase was, "Pay as you go," though, things became considerably easier. Still, we couldn't buy a whole lot of phones in one location, so there was a lot of walking around. I was glad that George had insisted I bring the pushchair, Amelia was fast asleep by the time we found a convenient alley and were ready to go home.

"I'll take them apart and play with them this week, and we'll get together next weekend?" he asked, hefting his rucksack with the Undetectable Extension Charm on it. He'd done it himself, very well, and I could hear the assorted mobiles clattering around inside.

"That's fine. If you come over to my flat, I'll be able to keep Mia entertained while we work." I caught sight of something I hadn't seen before, a very suspicious glint in the corner of my eye, and my eyes widened in surprise. "George Fabian Weasley, is that a wedding band on your finger?"

He looked down at it for a moment, contemplating it, then back up at me, wincing at my use of his middle name. "Can we not have this discussion in an alley in London?"

I folded my arms in front of me and raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to come with me and... explain?"

"Yes?" He gave me a sheepish grin. He seemed to understand that if he didn't agree to it, I would keep him in the dank alleyway until I had the answers I was looking for.

I offered him my hand and he took it, and I Disapparated us to the cleared space across the street to my flat.

We walked across the street and up the stairs to my front door in silence. "Hello, George," Harry greeted from his paperwork on my sofa when we went into the flat. "Did she fall asleep?" he asked, gesturing to the still form of my daughter.

I sighed. "She did. I'm afraid she'll be up all night now because it's so late, but I guess that's not my problem." We still had an hour or so before Draco would be by to pick up Amelia for the night. I was hoping to have a bit of relaxation time before then, but apparently George had some explaining to do.

Harry unfolded himself from his sitting position and came over to us, dropping a kiss on my cheek. "I'll get her settled in bed if you want to start some tea." He unbuckled the sleeping little girl, and gently lifted her onto his shoulder before heading down the hall to the bedroom.

George gave me a measuring look. "Is there a reason Harry's in your flat when you've been gone all day?"

I looked evenly back, arching my eyebrow again. "Now, I'm not sure if you've noticed yet, but Harry and I have been best friends for about twelve-and-a-half years." I didn't bother to ask him if he wanted tea; I wanted some, and he had some explaining to do.

I went into the kitchen and put on a pot to steep, carrying the tea service over the table. Harry emerged from the end of the hall shortly, and sat himself between me and George. "What brings you up to County Durham?" Harry asked as he fixed himself some tea.

"Have you noticed anything different about him?" I asked before George could say anything. "Say... His left hand?"

"Is that what I think is, mate? Does your mum know?"

"Right." George swirled his spoon in the milky brown liquid that he'd added far too much sugar to. "Do you remember when I said I had something to do last weekend?"

I nodded, lifting my cup to my mouth to take an experimental sip. Perfect. My feet were tired, I was tired, but a good cup of tea helps set a lot of things to rights.

"Angelina and I went and got married."

"You eloped?"

"Does your mum know?" Harry repeated.

"Not... exactly." He had the grace to look sheepish again, refusing to meet either of our eyes as he dug the spoon into my tablecloth. I let it go. It would clean up easily enough, and I didn't want to give him an out- arguing with me about tea on the tablecloth would mean he wouldn't have to talk about his apparent elopement.

"You're coming to dinner tomorrow, right?" I asked, and he nodded.

"I think she'd hunt me down if I didn't."

"She's not going to be happy as it is." Molly was still upset that she hadn't been able to plan Ginny's wedding. The two of them had eloped just the day before Amelia had been born, and we still had to hear about it now, over a year later. George was going to be lucky if she didn't skin him.

"Angelina's not really into the big traditional wedding," he offered by way of explanation.

That didn't really surprise me. Angelina was a bit of a feminist, and came as no surprise that she would find a lot of the wedding traditions a little too archaic. "Are you happy?"

He nodded, finally looking up. His brown eyes were filled with joy as he grinned at me. "So very happy. We talked a lot about whether or not we actually were going to ever get married, but she finally agreed that since it was so important to me, she would go ahead with it. But not the big ceremony with Mum driving everyone completely mental about making everything perfect."

I had to smile. "Then I'm happy for you. Congratulations, George." I got up and went around the table to give him a kiss on the cheek, and he stood up to pull me into a hug.

"Thank you."

"Congratulations," Harry offered next after I pulled away, and they shook with manly affection. "Don't think you can hide behind me at dinner tomorrow, just because I'm taller than you."

"I'll keep that in mind. Besides, Ron's taller than you are." George gave us a cheeky wink, and we all settled in to finish our tea.

He left shortly after that, promising to see us at dinner the next day, and after closing the door behind him, I went into the sitting room and sat down on the end of the sofa that wasn't covered in various pieces of paper.

I checked the time and groaned a little, slouching back and draping my forearm across my eyes. "I'd hoped to get a bit of a kip this afternoon, but I think it's too late for that. I'd just be falling asleep, and then I'd have to get right back up again when Draco got here, and it would just make me cross."

The cushions shifted as Harry settled himself on the other end. "Why don't you take a shower, then? That usually wakes you up?"

I shook my head. "Mia will probably be up soon. I should probably wake her up now." I didn't move, though. I paused for a moment, thinking, not taking my arm away from my face. "George asked why you were here when I wasn't."

"Did he?"

"I told him that you've been my best friend for the last twelve-and-a-half years. It's a good question, though, why have you been here so much lately? I know you have your own flat."

He was silent until I sat up and looked at him, to see him studying me from behind his glasses. "Ron's been... occupied. All of my spending-time=with-friends time has opened up, so I've been spending it with you, when I'm not with Teddy." He made a wry face. "And it's hard to get any work done when people are snogging in the next room."

I nodded. Ron tended to get caught up in his relationships when they were new. I had a sudden thought. "We weren't like that when we first got together, were we?" Not the snogging on the sofa, I felt a little uncomfortable doing that in front of Ron's parents. But the rest of it...

He put the quill down, shifting a little so that he was facing me a little more. "You were. But I was pretty caught up in Ginny at the time, I don't think any of us really noticed. Or cared."

I let out a long sigh. "That seems like so long ago now. Five years."

"Yeah."

"You know, if you'd told me five years ago that not only would I be friends with Draco Malfoy, but I'd have his daughter, I would have taken you to St. Mungo's to see just what was wrong with you. And to think of Ginny married to Lucius?" I shook my head. I would have laughed until I cried. So would she.

He chuckled. He stacked all of his papers into a neat pile and placed them gently on the floor, quill on top, before scooting along the sofa to settle himself beside me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me against him. I leaned against his side, tucking my feet up under me. "It hasn't all been tumultuous, though. Sirius is back."

"And married to Luna. Luna!" I shook my head, just resting against him. "Now everyone is all..." I gestured with my hands. "Related. Mia is part of the largest family in the wizarding world, but here we are- you're an orphan and my parents are gone, and we're just... Here."

"We have each other, though."

I reached over and squeezed his knee affectionately. "Do you have your suit for Dudley's wedding?"

"I do. I suppose you've already found a dress."

"I haven't, actually. I have one for Mia, she's so _adorable_ in it." He'd sent his cousin a letter the Monday after he'd asked me to go with him, and had received an answer back that children were more than welcome. I understood that she would probably be mistaken for being his daughter. We hadn't talked about that yet. "They're probably going to think she's ours. Together, I mean." Even though neither one of us were blond.

"I know. I'm not worried about it. I am her godfather, after all." That had been an easy decisions, maybe one of the easiest ones I'd had about my pregnancy with her. Luna was her godmother- the only reason I hadn't asked Ginny was because Ginny was her step-grandmother. "They're going to assume that you're my girlfriend, anyway."

I nodded. I'd thought about that, too. "Of all of the assumptions that have been made about me, I think that will be the least offensive."

"Are you going to say anything to anyone about it?" He was asking if I was going to correct people.

"I don't see why. I'm planning on saying a lot of, 'We met in school,' and various tactful non-answers." I thought for a moment. "Unless you mind."

I felt him shift against me, I assumed he was shaking his head. "No. We're never going to see most of them again, it doesn't really matter what anyone thinks. And I don't want to disrupt the wedding with a lot of awkwardness. And this will ensure that no one tries to pull, 'I work with this girl...'"

That was exactly how I was thinking about it. Not that anyone there would know me well enough to set me up with anyone else.

After a moment, his arm squeezed around me. "You know, I'm shocked, just shocked, Hermione! You don't already have a dress?" He was teasing me, and I dug my elbow into his ribs.

"I hate shopping for myself. It's hard now, with Mia, especially looking at dresses. She wants to touch everything and be everywhere."

"So ask someone to watch her for an afternoon." As though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I toyed with the thread sticking out of the seam at the knee on my jeans. "She's my responsibility, I can't just foist her off on other people every time I want to go into town."

"Hermione..." I heard him sigh, and then he leaned his cheek against the top of my head. "I have heard from more than one person that they would like to be able to watch her more often. Everyone loves her. Molly's still a little unhappy that Narcissa is watching her while you work."

"Narcissa's her biological grandmother!" I protested.

He let his silence speak for him, and I sighed. "You're right, I suppose. I just feel so guilty. She's my responsibility, you know."

"So go Sunday morning. I know Draco and Astoria have her overnight most Saturdays."

"I feel guilty. What if they have plans that they need to bring her home right away for?"

"What's that old saying? It takes a village to raise a child? Embrace your village, Hermione. We may not have any blood relations, but we have a lot of people around us who love us."

"You're right."

"What's that? I'm afraid I couldn't hear you over the shock of you admitting that someone else was right."

I dug my elbow into his ribs again and he started laughing, but any further retaliation was cut off when Crookshanks came into the room and sat down, looking at me pointedly.

"Mia's up."

"I'll get her. You get everything ready to go." I felt his lips against my cheek, then he was up and moving down the hall, leaving me to gather everything together.

Draco had most of what he would need for her at his house, but there were a few things Mia had to have with her that got moved between us when she went with the other parent. Her stuffed dragon, of course, but she would want to hold that.

I heard the front door open. "Come in," I called. "Mia's just getting up from her nap."

"A nap this late?" Draco sounded a little cross. I looked up from the bag I was getting ready to see him leaning against the wall, sneering faintly in disapproval.

"We were out all day today with George, looking at mobiles." He knew about the new project George and I were undertaking, of course. "Now you'll have extra time to read to her." Amelia loved being read to. She was very independent, but she would insistently bring people books.

"Dadadadada!" Amelia came toddling down the hall, arms outstretched to Draco, a big grin on her face. Harry was walking behind her, and as soon as he came into view, he tossed me the stuffed dragon.

"Mia!" Draco swept her up into his arms and covered her face with kisses until she was shrieking with giggles. She loved her daddy, and he was so good with her. "Potter."

"Malfoy." Their greetings to each other were devoid of any animosity. They weren't friends, but they got along. It was important to me. Draco was a part of my life now, whether I wanted him to be or not, and so was Harry.

The dragon completed the bag, and I closed it before taking it over to Draco. "Bye, baby," I told Amelia, giving her a kiss as he held her for me to do so. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"I'll bring her home after her nap," he told me as he took the bag and kissed my cheek.

Amelia and I waved at each other, and then they were gone. I turned to my flat's remaining occupant. "Are you staying for dinner?"

He looked up at me for a moment, his green eyes seeming to take in how tired I was. "I'll cook if you want. Pizza?"

Harry made excellent pizza. "I'll nip in and have that shower, if you don't mind."

He shrugged, smiling at me. "It's your flat."

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! Avalon-Mist- They're the BEST! :D**


	8. Chapter 8

Dinner the next night was an event. There was a lot of yelling and excited conversation when George broke the news that that he and Angelina had eloped. Eventually, though, everyone calmed down. After dinner, Molly sat Harry, Charlie, and me down for a serious discussion, which involved her wanting to make sure that we all knew we had family who would want to be there when any one of us got married. Bill overheard, and made the cheeky suggestion that maybe the three of us would just elope together, and Molly looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I quickly assured her that if I ever got married, she would get the dubious honor of helping me plan it, which _did _make her cry. Which made me feel a little guilty, especially since I didn't foresee marriage in my future at all.

The following Saturday, Amelia and I were sitting in the sitting room. I was folding a never-ending pile of laundry, and she was "helping," which meant that she was picking up random pieces of laundry and handing them to me, and knocking over stacks of already folded things. Harry wasn't there that morning, he'd had Teddy the previous evening, so they'd spent the night at his flat in London.

A knock at the door pulled my attention away from Amelia toppling the pile of towels. "Stay here, baby," I told her, then pushed myself up to my feet and went to answer the door.

George was standing on the other side, Arthur visible over his shoulder. "Morning," the younger Weasley greeted with a grin. "You eat yet?" He held up a paper sack of what looked to be some sort of bakery product, which I eyed dubiously. George liked things with more sugar than I could normally stand- pregnancy cravings notwithstanding- a leftover idiosyncrasy from being raised by dentists.

"I did, thank you. Come in, I'll put some tea on." He swept past me, depositing a kiss on my cheek as he did. Arthur did too, and was immediately accosted by Amelia pulling on his leg.

"Up!" she demanded, her voice tiny and imperious. Much to Lucius' glowering disapproval, she thought Arthur hung the moon. He had such kindly eyes, though, I think that had something to do with it. And he wore glasses. Amelia loved glasses. Harry had to put his on the kitchen counter when he slept on my sofa, otherwise he would wake up and find them clutched tightly in her little fists.

"Mia," he greeted her, scooping her up in his arms so she could inspect his glasses. "How's my sweet girl?" He treated all of his grandchildren the same way, blood-related or not. She gave him a wide grin from her new spot up by his shoulder, staring intently at the wire frames of his glasses.

George came back around from the kitchen, hoisting the bag he'd put all of the mobiles in when we'd been shopping. "He said he'd be here to help, but you know how Dad gets with kids." He gave Arthur a pointed look, a grin on his face to show that he was mostly kidding.

I had to smile. Arthur gave his son a mild look in return, but didn't bother to deny it. I moved past them into the kitchen to make a pot of tea, and I heard George settle behind me at the table.

"No Harry?" he asked as I poured out three steaming cups of tea.

"He had Teddy last night so they stayed at his flat." I turned around with the tea service, complete with plates for George's sugary pastries, and noticed the calculating look on his face. "Don't you start. I have enough happily-partnered people trying to get involved in my personal life without you starting in on it too." I set the tray gently on the table and sat down opposite him.

"I would never!" he protested, a very mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Arthur came over from where Amelia had been showing him her toys in the sitting room, and settled down at the table, bouncing her gently on one knee. She giggled in delight, and then her eyes focused on what George was putting on his plate.

George gave me a questioning look. "I don't know why you're bothering to look at me like that, considering you going to give her some whether or not I say it's all right."

"It's true," came the unrepentant response. He broke off a little piece and handed it to her, and she promptly crammed the entire piece in her mouth, her eyes wide.

"Fine, but if you get her completely sugared up, you're taking her home with you until she calms down." I sighed when his expression didn't change, and thought it would be best to just change the subject. "Have you had any success with the mobiles?"

He nodded, but his mouth was full of food, so Arthur answered. "We need to involve the Ministry. Officially involve the Ministry. "They will be setting up a regulatory department."

"Why's that?" It didn't surprise me, not really, but I was curious as to why. And I was surprised that Kingsley hadn't brought it up, at least in passing.

George swallowed his mouthful down with some tea. "We're going to need some of their magical know-how. This is going to be like the Floo Network combined with the wizarding wireless."

"And they keep their secrets pretty close." I nodded. That made sense. "How do you feel about that?" I knew that he wasn't very enamored with the Ministry of Magic, in spite of- or perhaps because- most of his family worked there. He thought it was too institutionalized, and too involved in everyone's life. He wasn't exactly wrong.

George shrugged. "Doesn't really matter, does it? If this is going to happen, we're going to need the Ministry to help get it sorted. I met with Kingsley, he assured me that he was going to keep the Ministry as uninvolved as he could."

Which would be all well and good until one of the Ministry's more conservative busybodies went anywhere near it. "If there's anything at all I can do..." While I doubted there was anything I could officially do, I worked closely enough with Kingsley that I could unofficially mention things to him if I had to. I'd done it before. "Have you had a chance to really look at them yet?"

The enthusiasm came back into George's eyes and he nodded emphatically. "They're wicked."

"We'll have to take most of the inner workings out, much the same as I did with the car," Arthur added. "We're thinking of using telephone numbers as well." He shrugged, shifting Amelia more securely on his knee. "It's worked well with the Muggles for a long time. The other option that they used to use was..." he trailed off, his forehead creasing in thought.

"A switchboard?" I supplied. I'd learned all about the invention of the telephone a long time ago in Muggle school.

He nodded, his face relaxing again. "Yes. That seems unnecessarily complicated, and I find it difficult to believe that there wouldn't be those who would use the opportunity to find a way to involve themselves in conversations they had no business listening to."

I nodded in agreement. Wizarding society was, on the whole, the nosiest group of people I'd ever encountered. I had absolutely no doubt that he was right; there would be people who would use a switchboard operation as a way to eavesdrop on conversations that they weren't meant to be privy to.

"Is there anything you need me for?" I looked between the two of them. It sounded like they had everything taken care of, minus the large amount of paperwork that the Ministry would no doubt generate for them to fill out.

"Yes," George answered. "I know you like to do some light reading before bed, and I was wondering if you could find out everything and anything you could about the Floo Network. I know the Ministry has most of that information locked away somewhere in their vault of things the rest of us aren't fit to know, but there has to be something somewhere." He made a wry face. "I'd like to know what sort of magic we're going to be dealing with."

"Of course." I thought for a moment, tracing my finger along the side of my teacup. "Charms, obviously. In fact, I suspect most of it is just going to be the right application of different charms. And you're good with them."

He nodded in agreement, and Arthur did too. Both of them were very well-versed in charms. "The car was," Arthur spoke up with the sorrow-touched, fond smile on his face that spoke of memories. He'd loved that car.

I patted his forearm. "I hear it's still living in the Forbidden Forest. Luna mentioned that she saw it not too long ago when she went down to visit the thestrals."

"Did she?" He smiled broadly, setting a squirming Amelia on the floor. She'd finally decided she'd had enough of sitting with someone, and moved off down the hall, Crookshanks close behind her. "How marvelous!"

We sat and finished our tea, after which George said he had to go. Amelia had been bringing Arthur a steady stream of books for him to read to her, and I asked if he wouldn't mind staying for a few extra minutes and read to her so that I could finish folding the laundry. I felt very, very apprehensive about asking, especially since I could have just waited until Draco and Astoria took her that evening, but his face lit up like there was nothing more he wanted to do in the world. Maybe Harry had a point about letting people help me. Not that I would ever admit it to him, of course.

Arthur stayed for long enough for me to get all of the laundry folded, and then left, saying he would see me again tomorrow. Draco and Astoria came to pick up Amelia right after her afternoon nap, and then I was all alone in the flat.

It was too quiet. Harry wasn't there, Amelia was with Draco and Astoria. I sat on my sofa, frowning down at Crookshanks, who looked back at me impassively.

"I hate being alone like this," I told Crookshanks, who shifted his front paws and looked up at me, blinking slowly. It was one of the things that had led to that evening where I'd conceived Ameila, my hatred of being alone. Maybe Narcissa was right. Maybe I did need a hobby.

I thought about it for a moment. I could take up knitting again. That thought made me laugh, a laugh that ended in an undignified squeak when I heard the door opening. I got to my feet and went over to see who it was, wand loosely in my hand. I certainly wasn't expecting anyone. "Harry! You gave me such a start!"

"Sorry." He certainly didn't seem very sorry, wearing a good-natured and entirely unapologetic grin. "Teddy went back to Andromeda today, and it was either sit in my room and pretend not to hear Ron and Katie, or come up here and see what you were doing."

I made a face. "Please tell me they at least stop when Teddy's there."

"They do. Very reluctantly." He looked at me for a moment before shaking his head. "Which means that when he leaves, they take up with... renewed vigor."

"Doesn't she have a home?"

"Lives with family. For some reason, they don't want to carry on like that in front of her family. I can't think of why."

I rolled my eyes in agreement, and moved aside so that he could actually come into the flat. "I was just thinking about how much I hate being alone. I was debating taking up knitting again, too."

"As long as you don't make anything for me." At the unimpressed look on my face, he nudged my shoulder. "We all have our strengths, Hermione. If I want knowledge or a cool head under pressure, you're my girl. But if I want knitting, I think I'll see Molly." I had to agree with that. "Seeing as we're both child-free, would you like to go to the cinema? We can pop down to London, see a film, maybe go out for Chinese?"

"That sounds wonderful." Certainly better than moping around my flat for the rest of the night. "Just let me get ready to go out."

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! :D The next chapter is already mostly written out, so it should be coming fairly soon!**


	9. Chapter 9

Harry spent the night before Dudley's wedding on my sofa. He was spending more and more time at my flat lately. Traces of him could been seen all over the house. In addition to the smell of coffee almost every morning, there was a bag of clothes that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in my sitting room, as well as a few hangers that needed to be moved off of my shower rail every morning. His blue toothbrush was in the toothbrush holder beside mine, assorted work files took up a section of my dining table and the space beside the sofa in the sitting room. It was getting to the point where the only time he didn't spend at my flat when he wasn't working, was the time he spent with Teddy. I didn't mind. It was actually nice to have him around, and he understood that while I didn't necessarily like to be alone, sometimes I just liked to have time to myself.

After breakfast that morning, I began getting myself ready for the wedding, starting with my hair. Harry kept Amelia entertained for me so I didn't have to worry about her trying to "help." When Draco had found out about our plans for the day, he was a little put out that I hadn't just asked him to take her early, but he agreed to meet us at the flat around four, which was when we thought we would be home. I was working on being more comfortable with asking for and accepting help from other people, especially when it came to Amelia, but taking her with me gave us an excellent excuse to leave if things got too uncomfortable for Harry. His aunt and uncle would be there, and I knew they hadn't exactly parted on the best of terms.

When I was mostly finished, I got Amelia dressed and ready to go. Harry, of course, only took a few minutes to get dressed and groomed, leaving me to once again curse his ability to get ready at the last minute and still look fantastic.

After I checked one last time to make sure I had everything I thought I might need- mostly things for Amelia- stashed away in my bag, Harry met me at the door. "Ready?" he asked.

I was holding my daughter, who was tightly clutching her dragon, and I took last look around the flat to ensure I hadn't left anything out of my handbag before turning to him and nodding. "Yes."

We went downstairs and outside together, walking across the street to Apparate. Harry wrapped his arm around my waist, and I felt the familiar pull of Apparation.

Dudley had told Harry about somewhere near the wedding location that he could 'teleport' us to, which turned out to be a little copse of trees in the cemetery behind the church. I set Amelia gently on the ground and took her hand, and placed my other hand in Harry's elbow when he gallantly offered me his arm.

The cemetery was quiet and neat, well-kept, and the church was a small, older-looking church, tucked away somewhere in the country. "It must have been a bit of a drive to get here for everyone else," I murmured to him, and he grinned knowingly. The benefits of being a witch were many and varied, and being able to instantly relocate from the north of England to somewhere in Surrey was definitely among them.

It was a nice day, sunny and not too hot, making the short walk around to the front of the building very pleasant. Once inside, we were ushered to our seats. The church was lovely, decorated with swaths of gauzy ribbon and sprays of delicate flowers.

A man who rather resembled a walrus seemed to stare at us for some time in very obvious disapproval, and beside him a woman with a very pinched look gave a very pained smile of acknowledgment before turning to face forward. Judging from their place in the front pew, those were the groom's parents, Harry's aunt and uncle.

We settled down on the wooden pew, Amelia between the two of us so there was less chance of her going exploring on her own. I put my hand on Harry's shoulder and leaned toward him, over Amelia's head. "Are those..."

"My aunt and uncle. Yes." His words were a little clipped as he answered me, and I squeezed his shoulder sympathetically. He was keeping his face carefully blank, which meant, of course, that he was not entirely happy to see them.

"Have you spoken to them at all since..." It must have been just about six years since the last time he'd seen them, that night when I'd become Harry Potter for just a short time.

He shook his head. "I'm not likely to today, either. My uncle is very disapproving, and my aunt is... Still jealous, I think. She asked Professor Dumbledore if he would take her too, did you know?" There was an unmistakable note of bitterness in his voice, and I squeezed his shoulder again.

His uncle's disapproving look seemed to include me as well, but I was getting quite well-versed at ignoring disapproving looks at that point. I'd become a lot better at it, that was for sure. Especially when it came from people who mattered so little in my life. He'd obviously already drawn some hasty conclusions about who I was as a person, and it just didn't matter to me to bother correcting him. I was likely to never see him again.

Eventually, the very large man turned himself back around, and shortly after that, the pastor indicated that we were to get ready to start the service. The wedding proceeded in much the same way wizarding weddings did, though it was a bit more interactive- standing and sitting, and hymns and prayer. The groom- Harry's cousin was a very large man- stood up at the front of the aisle with the pastor. He was joined by his bride- a pretty young woman in a lovely white gown, escorted by a man who could only be her father. I spent most of the wedding making sure Amelia didn't take off down the aisle, and at one point needed to discretely excuse myself so that she could run around outside in the sunshine for a little bit.

Eventually, though, the happy couple spoke their vows and kissed, and were pronounced husband and wife. And then it was downstairs to the basement for a bit of a reception, with tea and luncheon foods. This was nothing like Bill and Fleur's wedding, or even Luna and Sirius' wedding, with dancing and noise and laughter. Everyone seemed to separate into small groups for socializing, and just stood around, nibbling on sandwiches, drinking tea, and talking.

We stayed far away from Harry's aunt and uncle. Amelia decided that while she liked the big group of people collectively known to her as family, she didn't like the mass of strangers milling around us- and she'd missed her nap- so she ended up in my arms, snuggled into my shoulder with her face buried in my neck, clutching her stuffed dragon.

The bride and groom came over to us where we were sitting at the edge of the room in uncomfortable folding chairs, to thank us for coming. I was introduced to Dudley and his new wife Sarah.

"Congratulations," I told them with a sincere smile. I turned to the smiling bride. "You look just lovely."

"Thank you!" Sarah beamed at me. She pointed to Amelia. "Is she shy?"

"A bit. And we missed naptime, so I think she's trying to fall asleep." She was becoming quite a solid weight in my arms, hot in the June afternoon, a sure sign that she was falling asleep.

"I'll take her," Harry offered as I shifted her again, and gently pried her away from me to rest against his shoulder. She stirred, but must have realized that it was just Harry, because she snuggled back down to sleep.

"How old is she?" Sarah asked politely.

"Just over a year." I tucked a stray lock of her blond hair back in place.

"You never told me you got married," Dudley said to Harry, faintly reproving.

"I didn't." It was a bit more curt than the question demanded, a flare of his temper. And there it was, the beginning of the awkwardness.

"We've known each other for a long time," I added smoothly with a smile, my hand lingering on the middle of Harry's back. "We were at school together."

"Right. So you're... Right." Dudley knew where Harry went to school, and seemed to be eager to not dwell on it.

"What do you do?" Sarah asked Harry politely after a moment of strained silence.

"I'm in... law enforcement," he replied after a moment. We didn't know how much Dudley had or hadn't told Sarah about Harry. It was a safe guess that it wasn't a lot, considering she didn't know what he did, and there was no flash of recognition when I'd mentioned that we'd known each other at school. Perhaps it was for the best, really.

Another moment of uncomfortable silence stretched between us. "It was just a lovely wedding," I told them both with a smile, which Dudley took as his cue to thank us for coming and move onto other guests.

"Bloody awkward," Harry muttered, shifting Amelia against his shoulder.

"We came though, right?" I answered, just as quietly. "We came, we were pleasant, we didn't spend any time antagonizing your aunt and uncle."

He glanced down at his battered gold watch. "When can we leave?" He still sounded a bit cross.

"After they serve the cake."

We used the excuse of Amelia sleeping to stay mostly to ourselves in the uncomfortable folding chairs at the edge of the room. Several times, people came up to say hello and admire her shining blond hair. No one was quite rude enough to ask how she ended up blond with Harry's black hair and my own brown curls, but the questions were plain to see in people's eyes.

At last, though, the bride and groom cut the cake and fed it to each other, complete with the flash of the photographer. She got icing on his nose, everyone laughed, it was sweet. I was more than ready to get home.

"They seemed nice enough," I said as we walked back out to the copse behind the church. Amelia had woken up, and was toddling along beside me, her hand gripping mine tightly. "I don't think future get-togethers will be entirely unpleasant."

He nodded his agreement. "I do need to ask Dudley how much he's told her about me. I wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't told her anything. 'By the way, my cousin is a wizard,' seems a little far-fetched."

I grimaced in commiseration. When we came to a stop in the trees, I looked up into his face. He looked unsettled, by the set of his jaw he was gritting his teeth so hard that his jaw probably hurt. I rested my forehead against his shoulder and wrapped my free arm around him. "I think it means a lot to him that you came at all."

"You think so?" Uncertainty was strong in his voice.

"Before the ceremony started, he saw you, and he looked almost relieved. I don't know that you two will ever be friends, given everything that happened between you, but you are a part of his family."

"I hope so." When he put his arm around me, Amelia inserted herself between us, looking up at Harry. She had to be involved, too. He chuckled, picking her up. "It's good to have family, isn't it, Mia?"

She reached for his glasses in response, and I gently took her from him. "Shall we?"

**A/N: Maybe! According to her it wasn't, though! LOL**


	10. Chapter 10

When we reached the clearing across the street from the house, I was a little curious to hear voices floating over to us from the back garden. Harry looked a question at me, and I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe Seamus has a new tenant?" Astoria had moved out, she was living with Draco now. They hadn't found someone new to live on the top floor of the house yet, but maybe the voices meant that they had.

But then there were more voices, and laughter. Too many people to be moving in above me. I set Amelia gently on the ground and took her hand, then led the way to the gate in the tall fence and opened it, admitting us into the sprawling garden.

It was a cozy scene of socialization. There was a fire going in the firepit- enchanted with an age line to keep curious toddlers out- and from the smell something was cooking over the fire. Seamus was there, and Draco and Astoria. And, completely to my surprise, Marcus was there too. And... "Dean!"

Amelia had already shaken loose of my grip on her hand and was wandering over to one of her outside toys, so I rushed as quickly as I could across the soft lawn in my blue heels to give my old Housemate a hug.

"Hermione." He gave me a smile as he leaned down to pull me against him. "How are you?"

"Good, and you?"

"Good. I'm taking the top flat, we're going to be neighbors." He straightened up and turned to Harry, who had walked up behind me, offering his hand. "Hello, Harry."

"Hello, Dean." They shook hands with real affection. Neither one of us had seen Dean in a couple of years, he'd spent some time out of the country. Luna had kept up with him, occasionally passing along news of what he was doing. "Have you seen Luna yet?"

He shook his head. "She's invited me to the house when school lets out, but she's pretty busy right now with the kids and students..." His expression shifted to one of slight disbelief. "I can't even tell you how surprised I was when she wrote me and told me she'd gotten married. And it was very off-hand, too, 'Oh, by the way, I've married Harry's godfather.'"

I had to smile. Having received my own fair share of letters from Luna over the years, I could believe it.

Marcus had walked over to join us by that point. "You look very lovely," he told me, and I could see the appreciative look in his dark eyes.

"Thank you. We were at a wedding. Muggle wedding. Longer than ours, and a lot more standing-up-and-sitting-down." I gestured to the garden. "What's going on out here?" I could see a box over by Seamus, with the top of several bottles peeking out over the side. Chairs were clustered about, close to the fire, with a stack of plates and utensils nearby.

"It's so nice out here for a change, and I knew you wouldn't have a chance to have dinner, so I thought we could have a bit of a, what did you call it, Thomas?" Draco turned towards Dean.

"Cook-out."

"Cook-out, since all of us were going to be here anyway."

"That's-" I caught sight of Amelia and groaned. "Lovely. We'll be back out in a little bit. Excuse me." I went over and pulled Amelia out of the pile of dirt she was happily digging in. Her pretty lavender dress was absolutely covered in dirt. She protested, wriggling and fussing, and genuinely starting to cry as I took her in the direction of the gate. She didn't understand, of course, why I wouldn't just let her stay and play in the dirt, and it frustrated her.

Harry fell in step behind me, following us back inside. "Is she alright?" he asked in concern over her wails of frustration, just as soon as he closed my front door behind him.

"She is. She's frustrated because I won't let her play outside yet. You just don't understand why Mummy won't let you dig in your pretty dress, do you?" She ignored my question, her little face going bright red as she cried.

I carried her into her room and wrestled the dress off of her. She wasn't cooperating, so it wasn't as easy as it could have been. Once the dress was off and her nappy changed, I got some stretchy blue pants on her and a little purple T-shirt. "Wait a moment, baby," I told her gently. "Let Mummy get changed, too." I walked across the hall to my own room and she trailed after me, still sobbing her little heart out. Crookshanks was pacing around her, rubbing against her in an effort to calm her down, but even her favorite cat didn't put her off her sobs.

Harry stuck his head into the room. "I can take her down, if you want." He was already changed into jeans and his own T-shirt. I was about halfway out of my dress. I'd long since shed modesty about being in my underthings around Harry. We'd lived in a tent together for the better part of a year, it was something we'd had to get over fairly quickly.

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Would you? I need to finish taking this off, and the stockings, and my hair..."

"No problem." He picked Amelia up and tossed her up in the air, which turned the crying into begrudging giggles almost immediately. "Does she need shoes?"

I shook my head. "Don't bother. We're just going into the garden, and she'll just take them off anyway."

"Alright." He turned his attention to the little girl at his shoulder. "Do you want your broom, Mia?" He knew exactly which words would calm her down the fastest.

"Boom!" She clung to his neck as he took her from the room, and I heard the cabinet open and shut, and then the front door.

The pretty blue dress, knee-length with thin straps at the shoulder, was quickly shed, as were the stockings and shoes. I sat on the bed for a moment in my knickers and bra, head in my hands. What was Marcus doing there? I thought I'd been perfectly clear to both Draco and Astoria that while Marcus seemed perfectly nice, I wasn't ready for all of that. _Any_ of that. They'd both agreed, and said that maybe it was best I wait- but here he was in my back garden on a Saturday afternoon, telling me I looked lovely.

I started unwinding my hair from the elegant pile I'd made with it on top of my head. At least Seamus and Dean would be there. And Harry. Maybe the collective group could stop things from getting too awkward.

After I'd changed my clothes, and magically rid Amelia's dress from dirt as best I could, I was leaning against the wall beside the front door and just slipping my trainers on when the door opened. Draco stopped short, as though he hadn't expected to see me there, just inside. "Oh. There you are. I was just coming up to make sure you hadn't got lost."

I waved away his niceties, tying my shoes and standing up to face him. I folded my arms in front of me. "Why is Marcus here?"

"He was going to have dinner with us tonight, so when we decided that we would eat here, it didn't seem polite to tell him to leave." The answer rolled easily out of his mouth, but his smirk told me that maybe that wasn't the entire story.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I told you-"

He cut me off smoothly. "I remember what you told me. He's one of my good friends, though, we eat together. Finnigan was showing Thomas the flat today, and it's so nice out, we figured we could stay here and cook, and Mia could run around in the garden for a while." He knew I knew there was more to it than that, and his expression fairly dared me to say so.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine." I brushed past him on my way out, headed back down to the garden. I heard him walking along behind me, I could practically see the knowing smirk on his face.

Conversation was going and drinks were being imbibed by the time we got back outside. I noticed that Draco took his own glass of water back from Astoria, which meant that he intended to stay sober. That was good, since they were going to be taking care of Amelia that night.

"Want a drink?" Seamus offered.

"No, thanks. Probably later, after she falls asleep." I pointed to where Amelia was racing around the garden on her broom, being cheered on by Harry.

"You know we're taking her tonight," Draco interjected, an eyebrow lifted.

"Yes. But we're still here, which makes me feel like I have to be responsible." I pointed to the fire. "What's for dinner, anyway?" It smelled like fish and dill, which made my mouth water a little. I'd always loved fish.

"Salmon." Seamus grinned at the enthusiastic smile I gave him. "I remembered that the only thing that would get your nose out of your books at dinner was salmon. We went fishing earlier, Dean and me."

"Baked carrots and potatoes, too," Dean added, handing me a tall glass of water. "Congratulations on your daughter, by the way. She's cute."

"Thank you!" Harry walked up beside me just then, joining the group, and I dug my elbow into his ribs. "Nice to see a fire I'm not expected to cook over."

He grinned down at me. "Nice to see a fire I'm not expected to eat your cooking from."

"I did the best I could under the circumstances!" I knew he was mostly joking. It was nice to be able to look back on that time and joke about it. Being warm and dry and not hungry certainly helped in that regard. It certainly put things in perspective, though. The tenseness of his cousin's wedding suddenly didn't seem quite as serious as it had just a moment ago. We shared a look of understanding.

Dinner was fairly pleasant. We all sat around the garden, eating the food cooked in the fire. I sat cross-legged on the grass that was just starting to turn brown, with Amelia in my lap and helping herself to the bite-sized pieces of food on my plate. She liked the fish and carrots a lot, but wasn't too sure about the potatoes. She'd had a very exciting day, though, and shortly after she ate she started whining about nothing, in the way that meant she was more than ready for bed.

"We should get going," Astoria said, coming over and stooping to pick Amelia up. She knew that if they took too much longer, Amelia would get overtired and be up all night long.

"Her bag is ready to go. I'll just run inside and get it." I stood up, and Astoria made to follow me, Amelia snuggled against her shoulder.

"I'll come with you, so you can say goodbye before she gets too tired." She followed me out of the garden and upstairs to my flat. "I told Draco not to bring Marcus here," she said after my front door closed behind her. Her tone was full of apology, with a touch of irritation.

"It's fine." It had been alright. He'd been a little flirty, but not obnoxious, and it was easy enough to politely pretend not to catch his meaning.

"I'll talk to him when we get home tonight."

I handed her the prized stuffed dragon, and Amelia's bag of things, which were sitting ready on my dining table. "You don't have to do that."

"I do. My _darling_ fiance is the one who insisted that he still stood a chance with you."

I rolled my eyes. Of course he had. "Thank you."

She gave me a tired smile in return. I walked them back outside and said goodbye to Amelia before rejoining the group in the garden. Marcus and Draco were on their way out as well. I collected a kiss on the cheek from Draco and waved brightly to Marcus as I stepped neatly out of cheek-kissing range of him, instead going and taking a glass bottle from Seamus. The glass was so cold that condensation was forming on the outside- apparently he was as handy with cooling charms as he was with house-construction ones.

The four of us remaining in the garden sat around the fire, just talking and laughing and having a good time. I sat on the still-soft grass, my head resting on Harry's knee, where he sat on his conjured chair. Another handy thing about being a witch, there was never any shortage of seating.

The moon was high in the sky when I yawned for what felt like the fiftieth time. "I think I should go in and get some sleep. It was good to see you again, Dean."

"You'll be seeing more more often now," he offered with a tired smile. "Sleep sounds like a good idea."

I tidied up after myself and went back up to my flat, Harry following closely on my heels. "Come sit up in bed with me," I invited him as I settled our dishes and cutlery in the sink, with a quick charm for the washing up. I'd take them back down to Seamus in the morning.

He hesitated for a moment. "Alright." So after we both got our pajamas on and brushed our teeth, we ended up lying in my bed on our backs, staring up at the ceiling.

"We haven't done this in years," he observed, his hands folded across his stomach as he looked up.

I shook my head. The last time we'd shared a bed had been that horrible year when we'd shared a tent. It was just warmer to share body-heat, and it got got pretty cold some nights through that winter. "I was just thinking a lot about how things used to be."

I heard him yawn, and turned onto my side to look at him, propping myself up on my elbow. "That year was pretty rough," he agreed. "And then everything settled down for a while, and then everything became very much not settled down." Everything with Sirius, what had happened with Ginny- he'd even gone so far as to propose to her- what happened between Ron and I, Amelia... "But I think I like how things are now."

I nodded. I had Amelia. Harry and I were closer than we'd been in quite some time. My job was going well, I had the project with George and Arthur... "I miss Ron."

"I do, too. He'll be back, though, as soon as he climbs out of Katie's tonsils."

I shook my head at the unwelcome image summoned by his words. "Thank you for that."

He chuckled, shifting onto his side to face me as well. "I couldn't help but notice that Flint was here, speaking of climbing out of people's tonsils. I think he wanted to climb into yours."

"Draco might have said something to him." I rolled my eyes. "He's nice enough, I'm just not..." I sighed. "I can't see him as a father to Mia. He kept looking at her like he thought she might bite him. That, more than anything, just makes him not a viable option." I flopped onto my back, my eyes running across the smooth white ceiling. "I don't think I have viable options, at least not right now. No one is good enough for her. Maybe when we're both older, and my peer group is older. It's not like I'm not happy on my own and I need a man to complete me." I smiled at a sudden silly thought. "Or maybe I just need to find myself an older wizard like Luna and Ginny did." That was ridiculous.

"Well, there's always Charlie. I know he's only seven years older than you, but Molly would just be fit to burst."

I laughed at that. "She wanted him to propose to me when she first found out I was pregnant. Ginny suggested that she probably thought about suggesting it to you, but your being a non-blood relation made you safe."

I expected him to join me in my laughter, but he didn't. "Well, what about me?" The mattress moved under me as he shifted towards me, his face looming in the side of my field of vision. He'd taken off his glasses before he got into bed, he didn't sleep with them on. "With Amelia, I mean."

"You, you're perfect. You're so good with her, and she loves you. I just don't know that you're-"

My words were cut off when his lips closed over mine. I froze, completely not knowing what to do. Harry was kissing me. _Harry_ was kissing me. My best friend, the one man who had always been there for me, no matter what. Harry.

His face moved away from mine, his green eyes flicking back and forth as they searched my own. We stared at each other for an eternity of moments. "Say something," he urged me quietly, finally, and I could hear the nerves in his voice.

"You kissed me." I stared up at him, wide-eyed, willing my mind to process what had just happened.

"I did. I'm actually rather glad you noticed."

"Why did you kiss me?" was the very next question out of my mouth.

"You've always been a bit oblivious when men fancy you, I reckoned this way there would be no mistaking my intentions."

"What are your intentions?" seemed the next thing to ask.

He grinned at me. "Certainly not to propose marriage, but I thought I'd do that again." He considered me for a moment. "Unless it means you're going to slap me."

"I don't think I'd slap you." It hadn't been unpleasant. It had, in fact, been far from unpleasant. It was just unexpected. I'd been going to say that I didn't know that he would be into me, but apparently that wouldn't have been exactly correct.

He leaned his head down and kissed me again, his slightly chapped lips feeling just a little rough against mine.

I'd fancied Harry a bit, years and years ago. But then there had been Ron, and I'd just sort of given it up, figuring he made too good of a friend to risk messing things up with romantic thoughts, and I'd never gone back to it. But now here he was, in my bed, kissing me. His tongue touched gently against my lips, and I opened my mouth for him, moving my tongue against his. I felt a little dazed, a little bemused, and a lot swept away.

We lay there, our mouths moving together for what seemed an eternity. When his hand started moving up over my hip, pushing my nightgown along with it, it seemed perfectly natural to shift my weight off of that side, allowing him to move it more easily. And when I realized we were both completely naked and he settled between my legs, his hips meeting mine, that seemed perfectly natural, too.

**A/N: So that happened. For those of you who have been following along since ****_Lost_****, I will be going back and editing both ****_Lost_**** and ****_Seduced_**** as soon as this is completed, as I can. The main plot won't really change too much, just editing for content and grammar.**


	11. Chapter 11

Draco was the last person I'd spent the night with, and waking up beside Harry was remarkably less awkward than either of those times had been. Crookshanks was a reassuring weight against my legs, and Harry was already awake, lying on his side and looking at me.

"Morning." His mouth moved into a smile as he leaned over and gave me a gentle kiss.

I was quite conscious of what the inside of my own mouth would be like, so I accepted his kiss, and then resolutely turned to look up at the ceiling. "Good morning."

"Reckon I can stop sleeping on the sofa, now." It came across as more of a question than a statement, and I nodded in agreement.

"Unless you'd rather keep sleeping out there." That was more of a question, too. Maybe there wasn't a complete absence of awkwardness.

"No, I'd much rather be in here with you." He shifted, sitting up with his legs over the side of the bed and stretching his arms above his head. I watched the play of the muscles in his back in silent approval. "Quick question, though. You're keeping current on your contraceptive charm, aren't you? I'm sorry, I should have asked last night, but I wanted to, er, make my move before I lost my nerve."

"Yes," I replied firmly. "This is the first time I've had sex since Amelia was born, and I still make sure I renew it every month."

"Good." He paused, picking up his glasses and settling them on his face before glancing over his shoulder at me. "Not that I don't think we should give Mia a brother or a sister, but I think it might be one of those things we should plan out ahead of time."

"Children?" I stared at him as he stood up, still completely naked, headed for the door and likely the lavatory. "Our children?"

"Absolutely." He gave me a grin as he left the room. "Unless you don't want more children." His voice floated down the hall towards me, and any reply I would have made was cut off by the shutting of the bathroom door.

I knew he was mostly just teasing me, but the voice of reason in the back of my mind seemed to be only half-heartedly coming up with the common sense reasons that made even talking about more children a poor idea at the moment.

I was still ruminating when Harry walked back into the room and, much to my surprise, slid back into bed with me.

He looked at me for a moment, grinning. "I know you're driving yourself mental thinking about your morning breath, so go and brush your teeth and come back to bed.

I stared at him for a moment. When he'd walked back in the room, it had been impossible to miss the reason he wanted me to get back into bed, and I found my face getting a little warm. Without further words, I got up and went to brush my teeth and use the toilet, and then came and got back into bed with Harry.

Some time later that morning, my kitchen was filled with the smell from Harry's coffee press, and I was cooking breakfast while he was sitting at the table, busy with what seemed like his endless supply of paperwork.

I felt him watching me, and I turned to see him peering through his glasses at me. "I can almost hear your brain working, Hermione."

I considered him for a moment before turning back to the range, wondering how exactly to phrase the question that was in the forefront of my mind. "How long have you..."

"Wanted to shag you senseless?" he supplied helpfully, and I turned to narrow my eyes at him. "Don't know, really. I fancied you when we were kids, and then..."

"Ron."

"Right. And Ginny. I thought about it a few times when we were on the run that year, when it was just the two of us." His expression turned a little sheepish. "I was a teenaged boy, and we were alone in a tent, and the constant adrenaline and your knickers..."

Apparently my being in my underclothes around him wasn't as casual as I'd thought it was, and I could feel my cheeks heating up again.

Harry slid the chair back, grating it across the wooden floor, and stood to walk over to stand behind me. Resting his hands lightly on my shoulders, his lips found the side of my neck, just below my ear.

"You're going to make me burn this!" I protested, but my heart wasn't really in it.

"There's more in the pantry." He straightened away from me, though he kept his hands on my shoulders. "When Ginny left me, you were so good to me, and the old crush came back. But you were still with Ron, and he's my best mate, and I could never do that to him. And then you weren't, but then Malfoy got you up the duff, and that would have just been awkward." That was an excellent point. "I tried dating Katie, and that was a lot of fun, but my heart wasn't really in it. She knew. She was spending a lot of time with Ron because of the different shifts, and then she realized that he was more what she was after."

"So right now, you're just..."

"I'm not just anything." His lips met the side of my neck again, and I heard him inhale through his nose. "Merlin, you smell good. I've always loved your shampoo. I'm serious, Hermione. I thought I'd been making it fairly clear when I started spending all of my time here, and then I took you out on a couple of dates."

"Those were... dates?"

He stood straight up again, and I could feel his chest shaking with silent laughter where it was pressed up against my back. "Apparently not. I thought they were! And here I thought I was being so smooth. You said you weren't ready for dating because of Amelia, but then you kept saying yes to going out with me, and you told me that I was great with her... I thought you just wanted to take things slowly because of Amelia, and I was fine with that." He kissed my earlobe. "And then I thought you were just taking the mickey last night, but I realized that you had no idea that I felt that way."

I mulled over the information he'd given me for a moment, and then moved on to the next logical question. "So what do you want?"

"Breakfast." He plucked the spatula out of my hand and gave the eggs a final stir before reaching around me with his other hand and pulling them off of the element. "And then maybe you again before Malfoy brings Mia home."

His lips were moving along the outside of my ear, slowing my mental processes. "I just took a shower."

"Then we'll have another one."

My hair was still wet from my second shower of the day when the front door opened, Draco's voice coming down the hallway to where I had just finished getting dressed again in the master bedroom. "Hello?"

I left Harry there to get the rest of his clothes on, and walked out to meet my baby. Astoria wasn't with them, and Amelia started squirming as soon as she saw me. "Baby!" I took her from him. He'd already placed her bag on the floor by his feet, and he easily handed our daughter over.

I noticed his eyes fixing at a point over my shoulder, and then the answering smirk on his face. Little wonder what he'd just noticed. He was reasonably intelligent, there was no doubt he would draw the correct conclusions about what was going on. "Do I need to start knocking when I come over here, now?" he asked, one eyebrow lifting in amusement. "Finnigan did inform you that you're not to have any new flatmates without my approval, right?"

I kissed Amelia's cheek and set her gently on the floor so she could go and say hello to Crookshanks. She immediately started moving toward the ginger-furred cat, who led her down the hall to her room. "He did."

"I still have my own flat," Harry interjected with just a hint of warning, running his hand affectionately over the top of Amelia's blond hair as she passed.

"Temper, Potter," Draco replied, still lazily amused. "While I don't mind missing the rent with just Hermione and our daughter here, if you're going to be a permanent fixture, then I _am_ going to have to insist on it."

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but I placed my hand on his upper arm, giving him a quelling look. "That does make sense," I told both of them. It wasn't really fair to expect Draco to pay for Harry to live there. "We're not really living together, though. He still goes home." Sometimes. Rarely.

Draco folded his arms across his chest and leaned his shoulder against the wall. "I didn't know you two were fucking. If I had, I wouldn't have dragged Marcus out here yesterday. Would have spared myself a lecture from Astoria, too."

"We weren't." Harry's green eyes were beginning to show the flash of his temper. Draco had always had a knack for getting under his skin. It was a combination of Draco being a prat and Harry letting it get to him, and some habits took a long time to break.

"Right." His eyes flicked between us, blond eyebrow still arched. "Usually when two people in a flat with one shower both have wet hair, that means that they, in fact, took a shower together. I don't know how close you get with your friends, but I can assure you that Marcus and I have never shared a shower."

"This is... recent." I slipped my hand behind Harry's back, moving closed to him in an attempt to soothe him a little. His back was tense under the gentle pressure of my fingers.

"Not that it's really any of your business," Harry added tersely.

"Well, it is. My daughter lives here most of the time, I'd like to know if she's being exposed to the right sort of people." He was purposely taking digs at Harry, and I could see the situation quite quickly escalating. I had to take control of what was going on.

"Stop." I gave Draco a hard look, and then Harry. "If you two are going to pull out your penises and compare sizes, kindly do it outside in the hall. If that's not what is, you both need to stop. You _both_ know that the other is a significant part of my life, and that's not likely to change just because you didn't get to handpick my boyfriend," I addressed to Draco, "and you and I are together now," I told Harry.

"Wait, you two are actually together?"

The incredulous question surprised me, and I stared at the tall blond for a moment before answering. "Yes." Wait, we were, weren't we? Harry had said his intentions were serious, and I'd just said... I looked up at him questioningly, and he nodded, a grin crossing his face for the first time since Draco had come in. I turned my attention back to the man in front of us. "Why'd you say those those things about him living here if you didn't think we were actually together?"

"I was just trying to needle Potter. I assumed he was here for a friendly shag, I didn't think..." He took in the warning look on my face and rushed on to say, "Hermione, you fucked me, and you two have actually been friends for the last ten years."

I could feel Harry bristling under my arm. He would assume that Draco was impugning my morals. "I'll owl you," I told him pointedly, hoping he would get the hint.

"Right." Draco was starting to look actually worried that Harry might mean him bodily harm, and he fled as quickly as his elegant loafers would allow him.

I looked up at Harry, who was staring rather thoughtfully at the door as it shut after Draco's quick exit. "What are the chances that everyone knows about this before dinner tonight?"

"Almost a certainty. Draco will tell Narcissa. She'll tell Lucius- Draco might even just tell Lucius. Ginny will make Lucius tell her. Then she'll tell Bill. Or Molly." I considered the situation for a moment. "Or both."

"I don't suppose we could just stay in tonight?" The ruefulness in his voice indicated he already knew the answer to that question.

I smiled despite myself. "You actually think Molly won't just show up at my door with the excuse that she was bringing us plates?"

"No, you're right." He pulled me to him, sliding his arms around me as I settled against his chest. "I hope Ron's all right with this."

I'd been thinking something very similar, and I nodded in agreement. "Seeing as he's been attached to Katie for the last little while, I don't think he's in any position to say anything."

"He reacts first and thinks later."

I sighed. That was exactly how Ron dealt with things.

Harry leaned his head down to kiss the side of my neck. "You smell good. But I suppose we should get Mia some lunch so that she can have her nap before we head over to the Burrow?"

That surprised me a little. "Is it lunchtime already?"

"It is," he confirmed, and now he sounded amused. "We had a busy morning." Busy. That was one way to put it. "Why don't you go and check on her, and I'll start lunch."

After a kiss that lingered longer than it strictly needed to, I went back down the hall to Amelia's room to find out what she and Crookshanks were doing.

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! :D**


	12. Chapter 12

To say that Molly was pleased was a slight understatement. Ecstatic may have been a better adjective, but even that might have been a little bit modest. She met us at the door with a large hug for each of us and a smile so wide that tears threatened to fall. All throughout the evening, she kept looking at us and smiling, her hand pressed over her bosom. She even brought up marriage a few times, though never quite directly to us, always in general terms like, "Percy's getting married in just a couple of months, it would be so nice to have another wedding to look forward to for next summer."

Ron was... surprisingly all right with it. He just said, "So you two are giving it a shot, are you?" and sort-of smiled.

Being in a relationship with Harry was different, even than being in a relationship with Ron had been. With Ron, there'd been all sorts of tension between us for an embarrassing number of years, so when we got together, it was very passionate. The problem was, after the initial passion faded, there wasn't enough there to keep us together. With Harry, it seemed much more like an extension of what we already had instead of a change into something new.

The Black's first weekend home was marked by one of Narcissa's parties. She loved to entertain, and this was another convenient excuse for her to do so. It was nice to see Sirius and Luna home, and their very curious children. Sirius broadly hinted that Luna might be pregnant again already- it seemed that after dying once, he wanted to ensure that there were as many children to carry on the family line as he could possibly manage. Luna, too, had talked about always having wanted a large family, and she was very clearly content with how things were progressing in that regard.

A few nights after that, I was having a companionable evening in my sitting room with Harry. Amelia was already in bed, fast asleep. I was folding yet more laundry- one of the things no one had mentioned about having children is just how much dirty laundry they produce- while he was tackling Robards' unending supply of paperwork.

I became aware of him watching me, and I looked up from the small green shirt I'd just folded and set on the stack. "What are you thinking about?" I asked, taking in the rather pensive look on his face.

"We should buy a house." His tone was thoughtful, and his pen rested on the sofa beside him. He used Muggle pens almost exclusively. I couldn't really blame him, they were more reliable, and didn't require a spillable container of ink.

"You mean, buy a house together?" He was very confident about it, it sounded like this was something he'd given a lot of thought to.

"Why not? I'm hardly ever at my flat anymore, and I really don't want to pay Malfoy any rent. We could get enough rooms for Teddy and Mia and maybe another room or two for any future children." We'd had the discussion about more children already. We both agreed that we wanted some, he just wanted to get a little more settled in his career first, and I wanted a little more time to make sure that this was actually going to last.

"Isn't it a little soon? We've only been together for-" This seemed to be my automatic response to everything even remotely serious that was brought up between us.

He cut me off. "Hermione, stop." He sighed heavily. "You love me, right?"

"Of course I do." I regretted saying it, but it still seemed very much like something I should be worried about. Whether or not I was actually worried about it, well... Likely not as much as I should have been.

"And I love you. I have no intentions of leaving you. We already know everything about each other, just stop." I knew he was getting a little frustrated with the line, but he was very carefully keeping his temper in check.

"Ron and I loved each other. We were together for years, and then it all just fell apart. When we broke up, I lost one of my best friends. We're still not... The way we were before everything happened." I looked away from his intense green eyes, picking up a facecloth. Instead of folding it, though, I just twisted it in my fingers.

"I'm not Ron, and you're different than you were two years ago. I never would have thought that having children would make you less uptight, but it has."

"Uptight? Thanks a lot!" I knew he was teasing me- half-teasing me anyway- but it still stung.

He was sitting sideways on the sofa, his inside foot tucked under the opposite knee, and he shifted his papers and patted the newly emptied space on the sofa in front of him. I got up and went and sat down just in front of him, and he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me back so I was resting against his chest. "You were a little uptight, Hermione, you know you were. But now you don't even bring your work home with you anymore, you'd rather be spending the time with me and Mia."

"Now you do." I gestured to the papers scattered in front of me.

"I know you really don't mind. If it bothered you, I'd see what other arrangements could be made."

I shook my head. "If you didn't bring it here, you would still be doing it, you'd just be doing it at work. I don't need you to spend every minute we have together actively interacting with me, sometimes it's just nice to sit in the same room together. And you do make time for us." I understood quite a bit about bringing work home.

He leaned his head down and kissed the side of my neck, and I automatically tilted my head to the opposite side. Harry had very determinedly found out exactly what I liked, and now put that knowledge into practice as often as he could. "I know you're worried about what might happen, but you can't live in the future, you can only live in the present. And presently, I love you, and I want to live with you, and that would mean we would need to find somewhere new to live. Buying a house together just makes sense."

"When did you start making so much sense?" I groused, my heart not really in it.

"Well, my girlfriend is the smartest witch of our age, I need to try and keep up." He gave me another distracting kiss.

"It's hard to think with you doing that, you know."

He chuckled. "Your daughter's grandfather may have suggested that this is a good way to get what I want."

That brought up so many questions that just weren't worth asking, because I very likely didn't want to know the answer to any of them. "I can hardly see that working with Ginny."

He stilled for just a moment. "Not really something I want to think about right now."

I smiled a bit and tactfully changed the subject back to the more pressing issue at hand. "Where do you want to buy a house?"

"Godric's Hollow."

"There are not too many bad memories there?" His parents had died there, and then, of course, we'd been attacked by Nagini there on that cold winter night.

"No. I think it would be a good way to connect with my parents. They liked it enough that they wanted to raise me there." He nuzzled his nose into the hollow just behind my ear and inhaled. "I've been back there fairly recently. It's a nice little community, quiet. There are still a few wizarding families there, so it's not like we would be all alone among the Muggles."

That was actually very important to me. If something happened to Harry and me, I wanted Amelia to be able to go to someone close by who would understand. "Did you happen to look at any property while you were there?"

"That may have been my reason for going."

"And did you find anything?"

"Yes, I saw a really nice house. Lucius said he'd take us both back this weekend to take a look." His lips brushed the outer edge of my ear.

That certainly explained when he'd had a chance to speak privately with Lucius. I was somewhat incredulous, though. "Lucius took you?" I'd been under the impression that Lucius didn't care for Harry too much.

"The Malfoys own a large percentage of wizarding Britain's real estate. After I said that I was looking at a house for us, he insisted on taking me out there himself, something about wanting to ensure his granddaughter is in a _proper_ home." Harry wasn't nearly as good as mimicking the elder Malfoy as Draco was, but he gave it a fair shot. That explained it, though. Even being married to someone as stubborn as Ginny hadn't dulled Lucius' desire to control everything.

"When did you do all of this?"

"Monday at lunch. Even I get time off for lunch sometimes." He nipped gently at my earlobe. I got a very strong impression that his desire to talk about buying a house together was being quickly replaced with a desire for something else. "I notice that you still haven't said yes."

"What about your flat?" It was becoming harder and harder to hold onto rational thought as his hand slid under the front of my shirt and his fingers started tracing lightly over my abdomen.

"I'll sign it over to Ron." His free hand caught my chin and gently turned my head to give me a soft kiss. He pulled back just enough to be able to look into my eyes. "Buy a house with me, Hermione?"

"Yes." Our mouths met again, the kiss passionate this time instead of gentle. His hand started moving slowly up my side, and I shifted without breaking away from him to be a little more comfortable.

A muffled whimper from down the hall broke us apart, and Harry looked at me with a grin. "I wonder if she'll have a quiet night if I promise her a brother or sister?"

I narrowed my eyes at him in a glare, and he scooted me forward. I knew he was just teasing me. He chuckled at the expression on my face. "Why don't I go see what she needs, and you clear off the sofa?" He gave me another quick kiss before untangling himself from the sofa and striding down the hall to where Amelia was stirring.

He came back out a couple of moments later, just as I was finishing stacking his papers neatly on the floor. He'd taken off his shirt and glasses, and I had to admire the way his low-slung jeans fit him. "Her dragon fell out of her cot. She's fine now, settled right back to sleep."

"We might need to see if Charlie can get another one, just in case."

"If you want." He settled himself back down on the sofa beside me, leaning in for another kiss. Our lips moved together, and I ended up on my back on a somewhat larger sofa, Harry bracing himself over me.

Sometime later, I was lying on top of him with my head on his chest, our hands together, fingers entwined, a conjured blanket spread over us. "I'd never really thought about it, but this is definitely one of the benefits of being a witch."

"What's that?" he asked, his voice thick with post-coital lethargy.

"Magically enlarged furniture. I always seem to end up with the tall ones."

He chuckled. "I'd never really thought about that. Too bad you didn't go for Charlie, then, he's a bit shorter than... the rest of us."

"There's still time." I snuggled my head a little more securely against his chest.

**A/N: This concludes this little trilogy! And by concludes, I mean there will be editing done (I'll update my profile when I do it, if you're curious- mostly grammar and content, no big plot changes), and there will also be oneshots from the same 'verse, which can be found under "Along the Way" from my profile.**


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